
MARGARET PENROSE 






















































Class 






4 









■ : 


INTO THE RIVER THEY PLUNGED. 
Dorothy Dale’s Promise. 


Page 179 , 








DOROTHY DALE’S 
PROMISE 


BY 

MARGARET PENROSE 

AUTHOR OF “ DOROTHY DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY,” “ DOROTHY 
DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL,” “THE MOTOR 
GIRLS SERIES,” ETC 

f ' ' ' V ■ ^ \ 

ILLUSTRATED 


NEW YORK 

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY 



***** 


BOOKS BY MARGARET PENROSE 




THE DOROTHY DALE SERIES 

i2mo. Cloth. Illustrated. 


DOROTHY 

DOROTHY 

DOROTHY 

DOROTHY 

DOROTHY 

DOROTHY 

DOROTHY 

DOROTHY 

DOROTHY 


DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY 
DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL 
DALE’S GREAT SECRET 
DALE AND HER CHUMS 
DALE’S QUEER HOLIDAYS 
DALE’S CAMPING DAYS 
DALE’S SCHOOL RIVALS 
DALE IN THE CITY 
DALE’S PROMISE 


THE MOTOR GIRLS SERIES 

l2mo. Cloth. Illustrated. 


THE MOTOR GIRLS 
THE MOTOR GIRLS 
THE MOTOR GIRLS 
THE MOTOR GIRLS 
ENGLAND 
THE MOTOR GIRLS 
THE MOTOR GIRLS 
THE MOTOR GIRLS 
Cupples & Leon Co., 


ON A TOUR 
AT LOOKOUT BEACH 
THROUGH NEW 

ON CEDAR LAKE 
ON THE COAST 
ON CRYSTAL BAY 
Publishers, New York 


•? 


Copyright, 1914, by 
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


Printed in U. S. A. 

OCT -1 *23 

transferred from 

Copyright Office 





CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. “The Bad Pennies” . i 

II. Celia Moran, of “ the Findling ” . . . . io 

III. The Promise.19 

IV. A Porcine Picnic.28 

V. A Mountain Out of a Molehill .... 36 

VI. Dorothy is “ Pounced Upon ”.45 

VII. A Raid. 53 

VIII. Conditions.61 

IX. An Expedition Afoot.70 

X. At the Castle of the Ogress.78 

XI. Snowbound .87 

XII. Tavia is-Mystified.98 

XIII. Tunneling Out.107 

XIV. Several Surprising Things.115 

XV. Why Did He Disappear?.123 

XVI. Dorothy’s Wits at Work.132 

XVII. Tavia Takes a Hand.141 

XVIII. The Runaway.149 

XIX. Another Reason for Finding Tom Moran . 160 

XX. Back to Dalton.170 

XXI. “That Redhead” . » » .. . . . 17B 

XXII. On the Trail .... . »> .... 185 




















CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAG& 

XXIII. Almost Caught. 193 

XXIV. “Alias John Smith”. 201 

XXV. The Woodchuck Hunt. 210 

XXVI. The Fiery Furnace. 217 

XXVII. The Ring on Miss Olaine’s Finger . . . 224 

XXVIII. “ Jes’ the Cutest Little Thing” .... 232 
XXIX. White Lawn and White Roses .... 240 


XXX. “ Goodnight, Glenwood—God Bless You ! ” . 248 







DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


CHAPTER I 
“the bad pennies” 

The train started a second after the two almost 
breathless girls entered the half-empty chair car. 
They came in with a rush, and barely found their 
seats and got settled in them before the easily 
rolling train had pulled clear of the station and 
the yards. 

“ Back to dear old Glenwood School, Doro! ” 
cried Tavia Travers, fairly hugging her more 
sober companion. “ How do you feel about it? ” 

“Delighted, Miss,” laughed Dorothy Dale. 

“After our trying experiences in New York- 

Well! a country life is strenuous enough for me, 
I guess.” 

“ But we did have some fun, Doro. And how 
we got the best of that hateful Akerson man! I 
just hate that fellow. I could heat him! ” 

“ Your feeling is not scriptural,” groaned Doro- 



2 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


thy, though her eyes twinkled. “ Don’t you know, 
if you are struck on one cheek you should turn the 
other also?” 

“But suppose you’re hit on the nose?” de¬ 
manded Tavia. “One hasn’t two noses! ” 

“Well, Aunt Winnie is well rid of that Aker- 
son,” said Dorothy, with a little sigh of satisfac¬ 
tion. 

“And your cousins, Ned and Nat, have you to 
thank for the salvation of their income,” returned 
Tavia. 

“Us, you mean, laughed Dorothy. “You 
had more to do with the showing up of that 
real estate agent than I had, Tavia.” 

“ Nonsense- Oh, here’s the station where 

the girls may join us. Do let me open that win¬ 
dow, Doro! I don’t care if it is cold outside. 
I want to see if they are on the platform.” 

Tavia was already struggling with the window. 
But windows in cars are made to stick, it would 
seem. Tavia cast a pleading glance from her big 
eyes at the trim young brakeman just then coming 
through the car. 

“ Please! ” Tavia’s eyes said just as plainly as 
though she had spoken the word; but the young 
brakeman shook his head gravely. 

“Do you really want it open, Miss? ” he asked, 
hesitating at the chairs occupied by the two 
friends. 



THE BAD PENNIES 


“I want to see out—just a little bit,” said 
Tavia, pouting. 

“ But if anybody objects-” the young brake- 

man continued, taking hold of the fixtures of the 
sash with his gloved hands. 

“Isn’t he just a dear?” murmured Tavia to 
Dorothy, but loud enough for the young railroad 
man to hear. 

“ Do hush, Tavia! ” gasped her friend. 

The young man opened the window. The exer¬ 
tion seemed to have been considerable, for he grew 
red to the very tips of his ears while he was raising 
the sash! 

“Oh, thank you—so much!” gushed Tavia, 
perfectly cool. And when the brakeman had 
gone, she turned to Dorothy, and demanded: 

“Didn’t I say that prettily? Just like a New 
York society girl would say it—the one who took 
us to tea that time in the tea room that used to 
be a millionaire’s stable; do you remember?” 

“You are just dreadful, Tavia!” groaned 
Dorothy Dale. “Will you never learn to be¬ 
have ? ” 

“There they are!” shrieked Tavia, with her 
head out of the window. “ There are all the * bad 
pennies’—they always turn up again, you know.” 

The train was slowing down and the long plat¬ 
form of the junction came into view. 

“Who’s there?” begged Dorothy, willing to 



4 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

learn the details from her more venturesome com¬ 
panion. 

u Ned Ebony—yes, ma’am! And there’s Co¬ 
logne. Oh, bully! everybody’s here. This way, 
girls! ” cried Tavia as the car passed a group of 
merry-faced girls of about their own age. “I 
hope you’ve all got chairs in this car.” 

And, by good fortune, they had! Within the 
next few moments nearly a dozen of the pupils 
of Glenwood School had joined the chums—and 
all of these newcomers, as well as Dorothy and 
Tavia, belonged to the class that would graduate 
from the famous old school the coming June. 

“Tell us all about New York—do!” cried 
Ned Ebony, otherwise Edna Black. 

“And Miss Mingle! ” urged Rose-Mary, whom 
the other girls called “ Cologne ” most of the 
time. “ Is she coming back to Glenwood School 
to teach music? ” 

“Poor little Mingle has had a hard time,” 
Dorothy said. “ But she is coming back to us— 
and we must treat her nicely, girls.” 

“Oh, we must! ” added Tavia. “ Better than 
I treated her feather-bed.” 

The girls all laughed at that, for it had been 
Tavia’s last prank at Glenwood to shower little 
Miss Mingle with the feathers from her own 
special tick. 

“But about New York,” urged one of the 


THE BAD PENNIES 


5 


other girls who had never been to the metropolis. 
“We’re just dying to know something about it, 
Doro.” 

“ And if it is as wicked as they say it is,” cried 
another. 

“And as nice,” urged Ned Ebony. 

“And as horribly dirty as they say,” went on 
Cologne. 

“And the subways—and elevated trains—and 
all the rest of it,” came the seemingly unend¬ 
ing demands. 

“ Help! help! ‘Ath-thith-tanth, pleath! ’ ” cried 
Tavia. “ That’s the way one of the girl’s in a big 
store called the floorwalker—jutht like that! ” 

“ Now, go ahead and tell us something wonder¬ 
ful,” begged Cologne. 

“ See here,” said Dorothy, laughing, and diving 
into her handbag. “ Here’s something that I cut 
out of the paper. It is how New York struck the 
wondering eye of an Arab who visited it recently. 
He sent this letter to his brother at home: 

“ ‘People in America travel like rats under the 
ground, and like squirrels in the air, and the build¬ 
ings are so high that people have to be put in 
square boxes and pulled to the top by heavy ropes. 
In the day the sun furnishes the light as in Mo¬ 
rocco. At night the light is as strong as in the day, 
but people here do not seem to have much use for 


6 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


sleep, as the streets are just as crowded at night 
as in the day.’ 

“ There! ” laughed Dorothy. “ That is New 
iYork—that, and operas, and theatres, and ‘tea- 
fights, and automobiles whizzing, and car gongs 
banging, and the rattle of steam riveters, and 
newsboys shrieking, and-” 

“ M y turn! I’ll relieve you,” interposed Tavia. 

There are lots of nice boys—real dressy boys— 
and it’s fun to go to the tea-rooms, for you see 
everybody—and they dance! And we’ve learned 
to dance the very newest dances-” 

“Oh, Tavia! ” gasped Dorothy. “Only with 
each other—you know that. We’ve just picked 
up some of the steps, seeing others do it—and 
practised in our room at Aunt Winnie’s.” 

“There! She always spoils everything,” de¬ 
clared Tavia. “ I was just making Ned Ebony’s 
eyes ‘bulge right out’ at our wickedness. I 
think-” 

At that moment 'brakes were put on the train 
and the girls were suddenly tumbled together in 
quite a heap. There was something ahead to 
cause this sudden stoppage, and Tavia struggled 
with her window again. It went up easier this 
time. Perhaps that was because there was no 

good looking young man—in or out of uniform_ 

near at hand. 



THE BAD PENNIES 


7 


“ Oh! it’s a fire! ” gasped Cologne, looking 
over Tavia’s shoulder when the latter got the win¬ 
dow open. 

“On the tracks!” declared Tavia. 

Dorothy got a glimpse of the fire now. 

“It’s the bridge over Caloom Creek,” she 
cried. “ It’s all ablaze! I declare, girls, suppose 
we are held here all night! ” 

“Don’t mention such a thing! ” groaned Ned 
Ebony. “ It’s only twenty miles from here to 
Glenwood.” 

“Right,” agreed Tavia; “and Belding is the 
next station beyond the creek.” 

“ Let’s go out and ask the railroad men if we 
can’t get over the river and get a train on to Glen¬ 
wood at once,” suggested Dorothy Dale. 

“ Let’s! ” agreed Tavia, with a giggle. “ That 
nice young brakeman, Doro—I’ll ask him, if you 
are bashful.” 

But it was the conductor in charge of the train 
they found when the hilarious party of school 
girls got out with their hand baggage. 

“ How are you going to get across the river, 
young ladies? ” he wanted to know. “The high¬ 
way bridge is a mile through the woods.” 

“ But we know all about this river,” spoke up 
Tavia. “ There are stepping stones across it right 
below this old railroad bridge. We’ve been across 
them before—haven’t we, Doro?” 


8 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ In the summer,” her friend admitted. 

“Well, you can try it,” said the conductor. 
“ That bridge is going to be unstable, even if they 
get the fire out. A train may not cross from either 
side before to-morrow.” 

“Oh!” cried Ned Ebony, “we could never 
wait that long! ” 

“Come on!” commanded Tavia, leading the 
way into a path beside the railroad tracks. “ Let’s 
at least see if the stones are uncovered.” 

“You’ll probably find transportation from Bel- 
ding to the Glen,” said the conductor, as the girls 
started on. 

“Come on, now,” said Tavia. “Let’s show 
our pluck. Who’s afraid of a little water?” 

“I’m always seasick on the water,” murmured 
Cologne. 

“Never heard of anybody being troubled by 
mal de mer going over stepping stones,” snorted 
Tavia, in disgust. “ Come on! ” 

There was a fringe of bushes along both sides 
of the creek. This path beside the railroad tracks 
forked, and one branch of it led right down to the 
stepping stones. The water was rough; but there 
was no ice, and the top of each stone was bare and 
dry. 

Years and years before the people living in the 
neighborhood had put these flat-top boulders into 
the creek-bed, because the light wooden bridges 


THE BAD PENNIES 


9 


were forever being carried away by the floods. 
Of course that was before the day of the railroad. 

Tavia started across the stones, and Dorothy 
followed her. One after the other they got over 
safely. But Ned Ebony’s shoe came untied and 
she was last. 

Perhaps she was careless; perhaps she tripped 
on her shoelace; perhaps she was heedless enough 
to step on the edge of a certain small boulder that 
Tavia warned her was not exactly steady. 

However it was, the boulder rolled, poor Edna 
“ sprawled ” in the air for a moment to get her 
balance, and then the rock turned over and she 
went “ splash! ” into the water. 


CHAPTER II 


CELIA MORAN, OF THE “ FINDLING” 

“To the rescue!” shrieked Tavia, charging 
back to the stepping stones. “ Forward, my bold 
hearties! Man overboard! Who’s got a rope? ” 

Then she lost the power of speech in a burst 
of laughter; for certain it was, poor Ned Ebony 
was an awfully funny sight! 

But Dorothy was at hand to do something prac¬ 
tical. She sprang back upon the nearest boulder 
to the one that had turned under her unfortunate 
schoolmate, and in half a minute she had dragged 
Edna out of the cold water. 

“Oh! oh! OH! ” sputtered Edna in crescendo . 
“ I—I’m drowned—dead! Oh, do help me outt 
You mean thing, Tavia! Oh, I’m frozen! ” 

The water was ice cold, and the temperature 
of the air was close to the freezing point. This 
adventure might easily become serious, and Dor¬ 
othy knew it. 

“ We must hurry her to the Belding station,” 
she cried. “ Come on, Neddie! You must run.” 


10 


CELIA MORAN, OF “ THE FINDLING ” u 

44 Run? I can’t. See how water-soaked my skirt 
is. I can’t run.” 

u You must!” declared Dorothy. “ Come, 
Tavia—take her other hand. Have you her bag, 
Cologne ? We’ll run ahead with her and see if we 
can find somebody to take her in. She must be 
dried and have other clothing. Oh, hurry! ” 

44 1 can’t run, Doro Dale! I tell you I can’t,” 
wailed the saturated girl. 

But they made her hurry, and in fifteen minutes 
had her in the sitting room belonging to the 
station agent’s wife, where she was helped to 
disrobe, dried, dosed with hot tea, and finally 
managed to dress herself in dry garments bor¬ 
rowed from the bags of her schoolmates, the 
contents of her own bag being wet, too. 

There was no chance to get on to Glenwood 
for two hours; so the party of schoolgirls must 
of necessity occupy themselves as best they might 
around the Belding station. Meanwhile a better 
introduction to Dorothy Dale and her friends, as 
well as a brief sketch of “what has gone before * 
in this series, may not come amiss. 

In “Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-day” my 
heroine was some three years younger than she is 
when she makes her bow in this present volume. 
But even then she was a bright, sprightly girl, 
more thoughtful than the average of her age, per¬ 
haps; yet thoroughly a girl. Nevertheless, be- 


12 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

cause of the illness of her father, Major Dale, of 
Dalton (she was motherless) Dorothy took up tht 
work of publishing his weekly paper, The Dal¬ 
ton Bugle . 

At that time the paper was all the Dales had 
to depend on for a livelihood; therefore Dorothy’s 
success as a publisher and editor meant much to 
herself and her immediate family which, beside 
the Major, consisted of her two much younger 
brothers, Joe and Roger. With her closest chum, 
Octavia Travers, Dorothy had many adventures 
while running the paper—some merely amusing 
but others of a really perilous nature. 

Dorothy, however, survived these adventures, 
Major Dale recovered, and in the end secured a 
generous legacy which had been left him, which 
enhancement of the family’s fortune made possible 
the writing of the second volume of the series: 
“ Dorothy Dale at Glenwood School.” 

This story served, too, to introduce more effec¬ 
tually Dorothy’s aunt, Mrs. Winnie White, and 
her two boys, Nat and Ned, who lived at North 
Birchlands and with whom Major Dale and his 
motherless children had now, for some time, 
made their home. At school Dorothy had some 
fun, many adventures, and several little troubles; 
but with the help and companionship of Tavia, 
who was enabled to go to the school, too, after a 
very few months both chums decided that Glen- 


CELIA MORAN, OF “THE FINDLING” 13 

T iood was the very finest school “that ever hap¬ 
pened.” 

“ Dorothy Dale’s Great Secret ” came very 
nearly being Tavia Travers’ undoing, and that 
sprightly damsel’s adventures, and her friend’s 
wholesome influence over her, are fully related in 
the third volume of the above name. 

In the fourth volume, “ Dorothy Dale and Her 
Chums,” Dorothy came into really startling as¬ 
sociation with some gypsies and their queens; but 
there is likewise in the story plenty of school fun 
and excitement and almost a rebellion of the Glen- 
wood girls against a harsh teacher who had charge 
while Mrs. Pangborn, the principal, was away. 

Dorothy and her chums, with the help of Nat 
and Ned White and some of their friends, solved 
the mystery of the “castle” in the next volume, 
which is well entitled, “ Dorothy Dale’s Queer 
Holidays.” The holidays were queer, indeed, and 
there was a time when serious trouble seemed 
to threaten them all. 

In “ Dorothy Dale’s Camping Days,” the sixth 
volume of the series, Dorothy was mistaken for 
a demented girl who had escaped from a sani¬ 
tarium, and our heroine suffered imprisonment and 
much anxiety before the mistake was explained. 
In this, as in “Dorothy Dale’s School Rivals,” 
the seventh book, Tavia Travers had a prominent 
part in the action of the story; but Tavia was a 


14 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


flyaway and often Dorothy was anxious about her. 
The irresponsible Tavia had a heart of gold, how* 
ever, and her love for Dorothy, and her loyalty 
to her in any and every difficulty, kept the girl 
from going very far wrong. 

The girls had boarded the train for Glenwood, 
which had met this obstruction of the burning 
bridge, after the winter vacation; and that vaca¬ 
tion had been spent by Dorothy and Tavia in 
New York. The account of the fun and adven¬ 
tures they had there is too long to tell here, but 
it is all related in the volume next preceding this, 
entitled, “ Dorothy Dale in the City.” 

The chums not only found the great metropolis 
a veritable fairyland of surprises, but they had ad¬ 
ventures galore. By a fortunate turn of circum¬ 
stances the two girls were able to save Dorothy’s 
Aunt Winnie from the machinations of a dishonest 
real estate agent who had been handling some of 
that lady’s property; and likewise they had been 
able to befriend Miss Mingle, the music teacher 
at Glenwood School, and her invalid sister. 

As the other girls were looking after Ned Ebony, 
and offering her the contents of their own bags— 
from “mule ” slippers to powder-puffs—Dorothy 
was not needed; so she went back to the railroad 
station to make sure that no train was made up 
for Glenwood without her and her friends being 
aware of it. 


CELIA MORAN, OF “ THE FINDLING ” 15 


There, in the waiting room, she spied a tall, 
burly woman, with a very hard red face, who had 
just placed upon one of the benches a little girl 
of some six or seven years. The child was poor¬ 
ly dressed, and although she was not crying, she 
looked very woe-begone indeed. 

The big woman gave the child a little shake 
when she had placed her on the bench. 

“There now, Celia Moran!” she snapped. 
“You stay put; will yer? I never seen no child 
more like an eel than you be.” 

“ Am—am I really like a—neel, Mrs. Ho¬ 
gan?” demanded the little girl, timidly. “Do— 
does a—neel have feets an’ hands? ” 

“ You shet up with your questions! ” command¬ 
ed the woman, shaking a finger at her. “ As sure 
as me name’s Ann Hogan I’d never tuk ye from 
that Findling Asylum if I’d knowed ye had a 
tongue in your mout’ that’s hung in the middle 
and wags both ends. Sorra the day I tuk ye! ” 
Little Celia Moran put a tentative finger in her 
mouth to see if it was verily so—that her tongue 
was “ hung ” different from other people’s tongues. 

“ Are—are you sure my tongue’s that way, Mrs. 
Hogan? ” she asked, plaintively as the big woman 
was turning away. “It—it feels all right.” 

“Now, you shet up!” warned Mrs. Hogan, 
wrathfully. “Ax me another question an’ I’ll 
spank ye—so I will! I’m goin’ now to find Jim 


16 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

Bentley’s waggin’. Do you sit right there still— 
don’t move! If ye do, I’ll know it when I come 
back an’ ’twill be the wuss for ye.” 

With this threat the big woman departed with 
an angry stride. Dorothy had stopped to listen 
to the conversation; and she was greatly inter¬ 
ested in the little girl. She immediately went and 
sat down by Celia Moran. 

She was not a very big girl for her age, being 
thin and “ wriggly.” It did seem quite impossible 
for her to keep either her limbs or her toncrue 
still. 

But she was, without doubt, a most appealing 
little thing. Dorothy smiled at her, and Dor¬ 
othy’s smile was bound to “make friends” with 
any one. 

“ I guess you don’t know me; do you? ” asked 
the child, looking up from under long, black lashes 
at Dorothy. Those lashes, and the velvety black 
eyes they almost hid, were all the really pretty 
features the child possessed. She was not plump 
enough to be pretty of form, and the expression of 
her features was too shrewd and worldly-wise to 
make a child of her age attractive. 

“ I guess you don’t know me; do you ? ” she re¬ 
peated, looking in a sly little way at Dorothy. 

“ Oh, yes, I do,” declared Dorothy Dale, laugh¬ 
ing outright. “ You are Celia Moran,” she added, 


CELIA MORAN, OF “ THE FINDLING ” 17 

remembering the name the sour-faced woman had 
used. 

“ But you don’t know where I come from? ” 

The ugly gingham uniform she wore told that 
story only too well. Dorothy became grave at 
once. 

“You come from some orphan asylum, my 
dear.” 

“From the Findling,” said the little girl, purs¬ 
ing up her lips and nodding. 

“ From a foundling asylum? ” 

“Yes’m. But I wasn’t really a ‘findling.’ I 
didn’t come there like the babies do. I was two 
an’ a ha’f years old when they took me in. That 
ain’t no baby; is it? ” 

“Two and a half? Why, that’s a big girl,” 
agreed Dorothy. 

“ ’Course it is. But my papa had been dead a 
long time; and my mamma, too. And then my 
auntie died, so I had to go to the Findling.” 

“ And wasn’t there anybody else to look out for 
you?” asked the interested Dorothy. 

“ Only Tom. And he went away.” 

“Tom who? ” 

“Tom Moran. He’s my brother. I don’t 
suppose you know him; do you ? ” 

“I don’t think I do,” said Dorothy, shaking 
her head. 

“ Oh, you’d remember him—of course,” confided 


18 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

Celia, impressively. “ For he is so big, and strong, 
and—and red-headed. Yes. He’s got awful red 
hair. And he builds bridges, and things. Oh, I 
can remember him —just as easy ! So I must have 
been a big girl when they brought me to the 
Findling.” 

“And you haven’t seen your brother since?” 

“ No’m. And he’d gone away before auntie 
died. That’s why he doesn’t come for me, I s’pose. 
So the matron says. He don’t know where I is,” 
she added, with a little sigh. 

il And now Mrs. Hogan’s got me. She’s tooked 
me to bring up. And she says she’s going to bring 
me up right strict,” added the child, pursing her 
lips and shaking her head in her queer, old-fash¬ 
ioned way. “She spects it’s goin’ to be jes’ a 
job to do it! ” 


CHAPTER III 


THE PROMISE 

Dorothy Dale was delighted with the little 
one; but she pitied her so, too! Covertly the 
schoolgirl wiped her eyes, while the child prattled 
on. 

“ Sometime I know Tom Moran will come for 
me. Oh, yes! He mus’ be very smart, for he 
'builds bridges and things. My auntie what died 
told the Findling Asylum matron so. But some¬ 
how the letters the matron wrote to Tom Moran 
never bringed him back. 

“ Of course, he didn’t get ’em. If he had, he’d 
come for me. And he’ll come for me anyway, and 
find me—even if Mrs. Ann Hogan has got me. 

“ You see, all us Morans is jes’ as smart! Some¬ 
body said I was jes’ the cutest little thing they ever 
see,” and Celia looked up again, slily, at her new 
friend. 

“I really believe you are—you little dear!” 
cried Dorothy, suddenly hugging her. 

“ I’m glad you like me so much,” said Celia, 
19 


20 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


quite placidly. “ For then you’ll do something for 
me, I know.” 

“Of course I will, my dear,” agreed the older 
girl. 

“ Thank you,” said Celia, demurely. “ What I 
want is that you should find Tom Moran for me. 
If I could jes’ find him once I know I wouldn’t 
have to stay with Mrs. Hogan. For I jes’ know ” 
concluded the old-fashioned little thing, shaking 
her head, “ that she’s goin’ to have a—nawful job 
bringing me up strict—I jes’ know she is! ” 

“You poor, motherless little thing!” choked 
Dorothy. “ I’ll try my best to find your brother. 
I really will, dear.” 

“ That’ll be nice,” confided Celia. “ For I think 
I shall like better bein’ with him than with Mrs. 
Hogan.” 

“ And where is Mrs. Hogan going to take you, 
dear? ” asked Dorothy. 

“ To her farm. A farm is a nawful nice place,” 
said Celia, gravely. “ Was you ever at a farm ? ” 

“ Oh, yes.” 

“So was I,” confided Celia. “Last summer. 
They sends a bunch of us kids from the Findling 
to a farm—O-o-o, ever so far away from the Find- 
ling. And an old lady got me at the station, an’ 
we drove—O-o-o, ever so far to where there 
wasn’t any houses, or streets, or wagons, or music 
machines, or saloons, or delicatessen stores. 



AND WHERE IS MRS. 
Dorothy Dale’s Promise. 


HOGAN GOING TO TAKE YOU, 


DEAR? ” 


Page 20 . 


































































































































THE PROMISE 


21 


“ There was just one house where the old lady 
lived. And it was kinder lonesome; but the grass 
was there and bushes all flowered out like what’s 
in the flower-store windows. An’ they smelled 
sweet,” continued Celia, big eyed with her remem¬ 
brance of her first experience in the country. 

“I felt funny inside—all lonesome, like as 
though there was a hole here,” and she put her 
little hands upon her stomach to show where she 
felt the emotion which she could so ill express— 
the homesickness for the sights, and sounds, and 
bustle of the city. 

“But the old lady was real nice to me,” con¬ 
fessed Celia. “ And she gave me real nice things 
to eat. And—Oh, yes! she laughed at me so. 
You see, I was a nawful greeny! ” 

“I expect you were, dear,” chuckled Dorothy. 
“ You had never seen the country before? ” 

“No, I never had. And I saw the chickens go 
to roost, and the old lady caught one chicken and 
began to pick his feathers off, and that’s when she 
laughed so at me.” 

“ Why? ” asked Dorothy. 

“You see, I didn’t know about it, and I asked 
her: ‘Do you take off their clo’es every night, 
lady ? ’ And of course they don’t,” finished Celia, 
laughing shrilly herself now. “ Chickens ain’t like 
folks.” 


22 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“No; not very much like folks,” agreed Dor¬ 
othy, greatly amused. 

“No. We eat—ed that chicken the next day,” 
said Celia. “ An’ it was nawful good. We don’t 
have chicken—much—at the Findling.” 

“ Perhaps it will be nice at Mrs. Hogan’s for 
you, Celia, dear,” suggested the older girl. “ Per¬ 
haps it will be as nice as it was at that other 
farm.” 

But the little one shook her head slowly and 
for the first time the tears welled into her eyes and 
over-ran them, falling drop by drop down her thin 
cheeks. She did not sob, or cry, as a child usually 
does. 

“No,” she whispered. “ Mrs. Ann Hogan isn’t 
like the good lady I was with for two weeks las’ 
summer. No, Mrs. Hogan isn’t like that” 

“ But she’ll learn to love you, too,” declared 
Dorothy, determined to cheer the child if she 
could. 

“ No,” said Celia again, gravely. “ I’ve got to 
‘ earn my salt,’ Mrs. Hogan says. An’ I guess 
I’ll hafter work nawful hard to earn that , for I like 
things salt,” and she shook her head. 

“ You see, at that other farm, the lady didn’t 
make me work. I played. And I watched the 
birds, and the chickens, and the horses and cows. 
iWhy,” she said, her face clearing up with the 
elasticity of youth, “Why, there was an old man 


THE PROMISE 


23 

that brought his cow along the road to feed every 
day. The grass was good beside the road and 
the old man had no reg’lar lot for her to feed in, 
so my lady friend said.” 

The little old-fashioned way in which she used 
this last phrase almost convulsed Dorothy, despite 
her feeling of pity for the child. 

“ And I used to watch the cow. It was a pleas¬ 
ant cow,” said Celia, gravely. “And sometimes 
the old man would sit down under a tree in the 
lane, and he’d open a newspaper an’ read to the 
cow while she was chewin’ grass. She must ha* 
been a real intel’gent cow,” concluded Celia, wag¬ 
ging her little head. 

“ Oh, dear me! you funny little thing! ” mur¬ 
mured Dorothy. “ I do wish Tavia could hear 
you.” 

But this she said to herself. Celia Moran 
talked on, in her old-fashioned way: “No’m; I 
ain’t goin’ to like it so well at Mrs. Ann Hogan’s. 
I—I’m ’most afraid of Mrs. Hogan. I—I don’t 
think she likes little girls a-tall.” 

“ Oh! I hope she’ll like you,” said Dorothy. 

“ But you will find my brother, Tom ? ” urged 
Celia, earnestly. “ Tom Moran will take care of 
me if he finds me. I know he will.” 

“I will do my very best to find him, dear,” 
promised the bigger girl, again, with her arm 
about Celia’s shoulders. 


24 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


In the distance she saw the grenadier Mrs. Ho¬ 
gan approaching, and she had a feeling that the 
woman would not be pleased if she knew Celia 
had been talking to anybody. 

“Here, dear,” said Dorothy, hastily, drawing 
out her purse and giving the child a crisp dollar 
bill. “ You hide that away. Maybe you will want 
to spend some of it for candies, or ribbons, or 
something. Let me kiss you. You dear little 
thing! I will try to find your brother just as 
hard as ever I tried to do anything in my life.” 

“ I guess you can find him,” returned Celia, with 
assurance, looking wistfully up at t)orothy Dale. 
“You’re so big, you know. I want to see you 
again.” 

“ And you shall. I’ll find out where Mrs. Ho¬ 
gan lives and come to see you,” declared Dorothy. 

But then the big woman came and grabbed the 
child by the wrist. “ Come on, you! ” she ex¬ 
claimed. “We gotter hurry now, for Bentley’s 
waitin ’.” 

Celia looked back once over her shoulder as 
she was borne so hurriedly away. The little, thin 
face was twisted into a pitiful smile, and Dorothy 
bore the remembrance of that smile in her heart 
for many a long day. 

Mrs. Hogan had been so abrupt that Dorothy 
had not plucked up courage to accost her. When 
she asked one of the railroad men if he knew 


THE PROMISE 


25 


where Jim Bentley, or Mrs. Hogan, lived, the 
man had never heard the names. 

There was no time then to seek further for the 
locality of the farm to which little Celia Moran 
was being taken, for a train was backing down be¬ 
side the platform and the conductor told her it 
would start in ten minutes for Glenwood. 

So Dorothy ran to gather her scattered flock 
of schoolmates. Ned Ebony’s coat was dry enough 
to put on; but she had to go dressed in a con¬ 
glomeration of other garments, some of which did 
not fit her very well. Tavia and the others made 
much fun over Edna’s plight. 

“That hat!” groaned Tavia. “It—it looks 
just like you’d had it in pawn, Ned.” 

“ In pawn! what do you mean? ” queried Edna, 
doubtfully, and putting up both hands to the really 
disgraceful-looking hat—for it had been dried out 
before the sitting room stove at the railroad sta¬ 
tion agent’s, too. 

“ Anyway, it looks like it had been in soak, Ned¬ 
die, dear,” giggled Tavia. “And to use a slang 
phrase-” 

“ I should say that was slang,” returned Edna, 
in disgust. “ The very commonest kind—‘ in 
soak,’ indeed!” 

“And that bird on your hat,” pursued Tavia, 
wickedly. “That is sure enough one of those 
extinct fowl you read about.” 



26 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“Lots you know about extinct birds,” sniffed 
Edna. 

“ There’s the dodo,” suggested one of the other 
girls. 

“ Oh, I know what an extinct bird is,” declared 
Cologne. “ It’s Billy, our poor old canary—poor 
thing! The cat got him this morning before I left 
home, so he’s extinct now! ” 

Ned Ebony couldn’t take her coat off because 
she wore Dorothy’s morning gown instead of a 
street dress. And she had on Tavia’s slippers in¬ 
stead of real shoes; and there hadn’t been a guimpe 
in any girl’s bag that would fit her, so she was 
afraid of removing the coat as she might catch 
cold. She had been used to wearing a fur-piece 
around her neck and that much bedraggled article 
was in the big bundle of her half-dried belongings, 
thrust into the baggage rack overhead. 

“ I know that fur is just ruined,” she moaned. 
“ And it’s brand new, too.” 

“ Never mind,” giggled Tavia. “ I bet it’s only 
cat’s fur, and there’s slathers of cats at the Glen. 
We can trap some and make you a new scarf 
just as good.” 

“ Miss Smartie! ” 

“I declare, Ned, you looked just like a half- 
drowned pussy-cat yourself when Doro hauled 
you ashore.” 

“Yes,” complained Edna, “you others would 


THE PROMISE 


27 


have left me to swim out as best I might alone— 
no doubt of that. It is always Doro who comes 
to the rescue. ” 

Dorothy smiled half-heartedly. She did not 
join the general cross-fire of joking and repartee. 
She could not get the wan little face of Celia 
Moran out of her mind—that wistful little smile 
of hers—while she seemed to hear again the 
sweet little voice say: “An’ I’m jes’ the cutest 
little thing you ever see! ” 

But Dorothy was afraid that, as cute as she 
was, the ogress would be too much for her! 

“ That’s just what that Hogan woman is—an 
ogress,” thought Dorothy. 

Celia had been woefully afraid of Mrs. Hogan; 
yet how brave she had been, too! 

“ Somehow I’ll find her brother—Tom Moran 
—for her,” thought Dorothy. “ I will! I must! ” 


/ 


CHAPTER IV 

A PORCINE PICNIC 

There were five bows of ribbon laid out in a 
row on Tavia’s bureau, each with a cunning little 
collar of the same attached. Pink, green—real 
apple green—mauve, tango and orange. 

“ What under the sun can she be doing with 
those? ” murmured Dorothy, when she chanced to 
see them, and touching the pretty bows lightly 
with her fingers. “ Why! Tavia must be going to 
introduce a new style. Are they ribbon brace¬ 
lets? How pretty! ” 

It was the day following the hilarious arrival 
of “ the bad pennies ” at Glenwood School, after 
the railroad bridge had burned and delayed them, 
and Dorothy herself had met little Celia Moran, 
the girl from the “ Findling.” 

Mrs. Pangborn had not yet arrived. She had 
been delayed by some family difficulty, it was un¬ 
derstood, and really, for these first days of the 
new term, “ things were going every which-way,” 
as Tavia herself declared. 

28 


A PORCINE PICNIC 


29 


There was a new teacher in charge, too—Miss 
Olaine. Miss Olaine was tall, and thin, and 
grim. Tavia declared she looked just like “ a sign 
post on the road to trouble.” 

u And you want to be careful you don’t fall 
Under her eye, Tavia,” Cologne had advised.“ The 
girls who have been here through the vacation 
say she’s a Tartar.” 

** Humph! ” the headstrong Tavia had declared,, 
“she may be the cream of Tartar, for all I care*. 
I shall take the starch out of her.” 

Now, had Dorothy Dale chanced to hear this 
reckless promise of her chum she might have 
been more supsicious of the five pretty ribbon 
bows. Indeed, she would have been suspicious of 
every particular thing Tavia said, or did. 

But, as it chanced, Miss Olaine seemed no more 
harsh or forbidding to Dorothy than any other 
teacher. Dorothy was not one to antagonize the 
teachers, no matter who they might be. 

“Five bows,” murmured Dorothy again. “I 
wonder just what they can be for? Why, they’re 
too small, I do believe—those rings are—for 
Tavia’s wrist—or mine. 

“ Five of them! One for each finger of a hand— 
one for each of the ‘ five senses,’ I declare!—one 
'for each of Jacob Bensell’s young ones who live 
in the cottage down the road. There’s five of 
them . 


30 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“And there’s five cows in Middleton’s pasture 
—though I don’t suppose Tavia is going to dec¬ 
orate them. And there’s five cunning little pigs 
in Jake’s pen—he showed them to me last night,” 
and Dorothy laughed, as she touched the pretty 
bows again. “ I can’t imagine-” 

In bounced Tavia herself. “Oh, you here?” 
she cried, and went right over to the bureau and 
tumbled the five pretty ribbon bows into her top 
drawer and shut the drawer quickly. 

“ I got here just a minute ahead of you,” said 
Dorothy. 

“ Oh!” 

“What are the cunning little wristlets for?” 
demanded Dorothy, curiously. 

“‘Wristlets’?” 

“ You know what I mean. The ribbons ? ” 

“ Oh—now—Doro-” 

“ What are they for? ” repeated Dorothy. 

“Just to make curious folk ask questions, I 
guess,” chuckled Tavia, her big brown eyes danc¬ 
ing, and just then several of the other girls tum¬ 
bled into the room and there was so much noise 
and talk that Dorothy quite forgot the ribbon 
bows. 

“ That old Olaine is just the meanest-” from 

Cologne. 

“ Did you hear what she said to little Luttrell 
when she couldn’t find her skates? And Luttrell’s 





A PORCINE PICNIC 31 

folks can’t buy her skates every day, I don’t be¬ 
lieve,” declared Ned Ebony, hotly. 

“Did you hear her, Doro?” demanded Nita 
Brent 

“No,” admitted Dorothy Dale. 

“ Why, she told Luttrell not to cry like a baby 
about it; probably somebody found them that 
needed them more than she did. Nasty old-” 

“ Hold on! Hold on! ” advised Dorothy. 

Tavia laughed rather harshly. “ Miss Olaine is 
just as comforting as the rooster was when Mrs. 
Hen was in tears because one of her little ones 
had been sacrificed to make a repast for the visit¬ 
ing clergyman. 

“ 4 Cheer up, Madam,’ said Mr. Rooster. 4 You 
should rejoice that your son is entering the min¬ 
istry. He was poorly qualified for a lay member, 
anyhow,’ ” and Tavia laughed again, as did the 
others. 

44 Oh, Tavia, that’s ridiculous,” said Cologne. 
44 Aren’t you sorry for little Luttrell? ” 

44 And don’t you just hate Miss Olaine?” de¬ 
manded Ebony. 

“Oh, you leave her to me,” said Tavia, cheer¬ 
fully. 44 We’ll get square with her if she stays at 
Glenwood Hall for long.” 

44 You would better have a care,” warned Dor¬ 
othy. 44 1 don’t believe that the lady will stand 
much fooling, Tavia.” 



32 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ * Fooling’? ” repeated Tavia, making “big 
eyes” at her chums. “How you talk! I would 
not fool with Miss Olaine-” 

“I guess not,” cried one of the other girls. “ I 
heard what she said to Miss Mingle.” 

“ What was that? ” 

“ She said ‘she hoped she knew how to handle 
a lot of half-grown, saucy young-ones! * Doesn’t 
that sound nice ? ” 

“ Us—young-ones! ” gasped Dorothy. 

“ What a slap at our dignity—and we to grad¬ 
uate in June,” said Cologne, heavily. “ I guess 
that settles Miss Olaine-” 

“You leave her to me,” said Tavia, again, and 
nodding with emphasis. “ I shall just square things 
up with her.” 

“ Oh, Tavia ! ” cried Edna Black. “ What will 
you do?” 

“ Nothing at all, I hope,” interposed Dorothy. 

Her chum began to giggle. “You just wait,” 
she said. 

“ Do, do be careful,” warned Dorothy when the 
-other girls had gone some time later, leaving her 
and her chum alone in the dormitory. 

“Am I not always careful? ” demanded Tavia, 
opening her big eyes wider than ever. 

“You’re usually careful to get into trouble,” 
sighed Dorothy. 

“ Oh, Doro-” 





A PORCINE PICNIC 33 

“ And see the numbers of times the rest of us 
have had to help you out.” 

“You mean you have had to help me out. 
You’re a good old thing, Doro—just like a grand¬ 
ma to me! Come and kiss your youngest grand¬ 
child, Doro—that’s a dear! ” 

“ Go away, do! ” cried Dorothy, though she 
had to laugh at Tavia, too. “You are as irre¬ 
sponsible as ever.” 

“ Of course, Granny,” giggled Tavia, as she put 
a wee dab of talcum powder on her nose. 

“ But don’t you dare do anything to make Mrs. 
Pangborn send you home before you are properly 
graduated,” warned Dorothy. 

“Suspended from the Glen? Well, I guess 
not! ” cried her friend. 

But there was something in the air. Dorothy 
knew it. Nobody else seemed to be in the secret 
but Tavia, however; and for Tavia to have any 
secret at all from her chum- 

Well, Dorothy could only wait. She was sure 
Tavia “would show her hand” before long. 
But this time the prank was revealed to Dorothy 
too late for the latter to save her fly-away friend 
from the results of her folly. 

The next evening she saw Tavia lurking in the 
shadow of the hedge down towards Bensell’s place. 
Was that Jake’s oldest boy who ran away when 
Dorothy approached? 



34 


DOROTHY DALE'S PROMISE 


“ My goodness! how you startled me! ” drawled 
Tavia when Dorothy pinched her chum’s plump 
arm. 

“Can’t you let them be in peace, Tavia?” 
laughed Dorothy, who knew very well that her 
chum had not been startled at all. 

“ What? Oh! Let who be in peace? ” demanded 
Tavia, and then Dorothy, in amaze, knew her 
friend was startled. 

“ The boys. Have you got to practice your fell 
designs on Sammy Bensell?” 

“How ridiculous!” chuckled Tavia, with a 
toss of her head, and plainly relieved. “ Poor 
Sammy! ” 

And even then Dorothy had not suspected the 
secret. Tavia went back to the Hall with her. 
Everything seemed as calm as could be. And then, 
the next forenoon, when recitations began in Miss 
Olaine’s room, the storm broke. 

Behind the desk and platform devoted to the 
teacher’s use was the door of a little retiring room. 
Soon after the class assembled there were peculiar 
noises heard in that room. Miss Olaine stood up 
and looked at the door. 

“Who is in that room, young ladies?” she de¬ 
manded. 

Silence—oh, a great deal of silence! You could 
cut it with a knife. 

And the most amazed-looking person in the 


A PORCINE PICNIC 


35 


room was Tavia Travers. Miss Olaine threw 
open the door with a savage sort of exclamation. 
The next instant she shrieked shrilly, and hopped 
into the seat of her own chair, standing upright 
there and holding her skirts close about her an¬ 
kles. 

“Who did this? Who did such an atrocious 
thing? ” cried the teacher. 

Out of the room there ran a cunning little white 
and black pig—and then another, and another, 
until the laughing, half-hysterical girls counted five 
of the little dears. 

Each was scrubbed as clean as ever pig before 
was scrubbed! And their little pink eyes, and sharp 
noses, and pricked-up ears, and queer little tails, 
made the cunning little things as pretty as lapdogs. 

“ Who’d suppose she was afraid of pigs?” Ed¬ 
na Black said afterward. “ And they so cute! ” 

But Miss Olaine shrieked and shrieked, as the 
pigs, each with one of those beautiful ribbon bows 
at the back of its fat neck, ran around and around 
her chair and desk. The platform was so high 
that they were afraid to jump down, for they 
were not more than two spans long. 

“Oh, dear me!” groaned Dorothy. “Now 
Tavia is in for it again,” for Tavia looked alto¬ 
gether too innocent to escape suspicion. 


CHAPTER V 


A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL 

“Who did this?” demanded the teacher, from 
her perch. “ Who dared commit such an atrocious 
act? Take them aw-a-ay!” 

Her cry ending in such a wail, and her appear¬ 
ance suggesting approaching hysterics, Dorothy 
ran forward and tried to “ shoo ” the little piglets 
back into the closet. But most of the other girls 
were laughing so outrageously that they could not 
help, and the little squealers would not “ shoo ” 
worth a cent! 

“ Are you guilty of this deed, Miss Dale? ” de¬ 
manded Miss Olaine, seizing a ruler from the desk 
and trying to strike one of the pigs. 

“ Oh, don’t hurt the cunning little things! ” 
cried Dorothy. “Please don’t, Miss Olaine. 
Oh!” 

One of the little fellows got a crack from the 
ruler and his little tail straightened out and he 
made a noise like a rusty gate-hinge. 

“Oh, oh I Please don’t!” begged Dorothy. 

36 


A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL 37 
“ Please don’t, Miss Olaine. I’ll get them all shut 


Just then the two that she had managed to get 
into the closet again, ran out. The teacher was 
recovering from her fright; but her rage grew 
apace. 

“You are guilty of this outrage, Miss Dale! ” 
she accused. “You shall be punished for it—in¬ 
deed yes! ” 

“You are mistaken, Miss Olaine,” said Dor¬ 
othy, ceasing to chase the tiny porkers, and facing 
the teacher standing in the chair. 

“You did! You did it!” ejaculated the panting 
teacher. “ You know all about the beasts-” 

Then she let out another yell. One of the littla 
fellows stood on its hind legs against Miss Olaine’s 
chair and tried to sniff at that lady’s boots. 

“ Get them back into that closet! ” commanded 
Miss Olaine, savagely, and glaring at Dorothy. 
“Then I’ll ’tend to you, Miss.” 

The whole class was silent by this time—“ all 
but the pigs,” as one of the girls whispered. They 
were astonished to hear Dorothy accused by the 
teacher—more astonished than they had been by 
the advent of the pigs in the classroom. As Ned 
Ebony pointed out afterward, pigs, or anything 
else, might come to recitation; but for Dorothy 
Dale to be accused of such a prank as this was quite 
too shocking! 




3*5 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


Now, Dorothy was usually pretty sweet tem¬ 
pered; but the manner in which the new teacher 
spoke to her—and her unfair decision that she, 
Dorothy, was guilty of the prank—hurt and an¬ 
gered the girl. 

She lifted her head grandly and looked Miss 
Olaine straight in the eye. 

“You may get rid of the pigs yourself, as far 
as I am concerned,” she said, distinctly “ We are 
not in the habit of being accused of things at 
Glenwood Hall without there being some evidence 
against us.” 

She whirled around and went to her seat. Miss 
Olaine fairly screamed after her: “Come back 
here, Miss Saucebox, and get rid of these pigs.” 

“ They’re not my pigs,” said Dorothy, resuming 
her seat, coolly. 

“They’re Jake Bensell’s pigs, Miss Olaine,” 
piped up one of the girls from a back seat. 

“ Run and get Mr. Bensell at once,” commanded 
the teacher. “ I’ll get to the bottom of this-” 

She almost pitched out of the chair then, and all 
the pigs ran out of the closet again and gamboled 
about the platform. Miss Olaine was held pris¬ 
oner in her chair—“ like a statue of Liberty defy¬ 
ing the lightning” Tavia whispered to Edna. 

“She’s an awfully funny statue,” giggled Ned. 

But you’ve got Liberty and Ajax mixed, Tavia.” 

Miss Olaine would not -allow any of the other 



A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL 39 


girls to help her after Dorothy had retreated. 
She waited impatiently until the girl who had run 
for Jake Bensell returned with the farmer in tow. 

M Is your name Bensell?” demanded Miss 
Olaine from her perch on the chair. 

“ Yes, ma’am! ” admitted Jake. 

“Are these your pigs—these nasty beasts?” 

Jake scratched his head slowly, and grinned. 
“ I expect they be; but they air kinder dressed up,” 
he said. “ I heard the old one carryin’ on all 
this mawnin”; but I didn’t know the litter had 
strayed clean over here to school.” and he 
chuckled. 

“Take the insufferable creatures out of here! ” 
commanded Miss Olaine. “And I believe you 
knew something about this disgusting exhibition 
of Tom-foolery! ” 

“Eh? No, ma’am! I didn’t have nothin’ to 
do with it,” declared Jake. “And I’ll have to go 
home for a bag to put them in-” 

“ Get them out of this room at once! ” cried 
Miss Olaine. “ I cannot stand this another min¬ 
ute.” 

Hysteria was threatening again. Jake drew a 
handful of corn from his pocket. The little pigs 
were just about big enough to begin to eat corn. He 
dropped a few kernels on the platform, trailed it 
along to the door of the small room, and then 
threw the rest of the corn inside. In two minutes 



40 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


the last curly-cued tail disappeared within, and 
Jake closed the door on them. 

“You kin come down, ma’am,” he said, with a 
chuckle. “ I’ll go home for a bag, and I’ll step 
into that room through the winder—it’s open— 
and gather ’em all up.” 

“ They must have been put in at that window,” 
remarked Miss Olaine, suspiciously, and breathing 
heavily after sitting down again. “ What do you 
know about it, sir? ” 

“ Nothing a-tall—I assure ye,” chuckled Jake. 

“ Those horrid beasts could not have got into 
that open window without help,” snapped the 
teacher. 

“ I dunno,” said the farmer, gracelessly. “ They 
wander a good ways now-” 

“I believe you are in league with that girl! ” 
and she pointed her finger at Dorothy. 

“ Miss Dorothy? My goodness, no! ” gasped 
Jake. “ I’m dead sure she ain’t in it,” he added. 

“ Why not, sir? ” 

“ ’Cause she ain’t never into no such practical 
jokes-” 

“Jokes! ” cried Miss Olaine. “ She’ll find it’s 
no joke. It—it is a crime! She should be instant¬ 
ly dismissed. Oh, if Mrs. Pangborn were only 
here-” 

Jake retreated, shaking his head. The class 
was in a buzz of excitement. Dorothy was angry 





A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL 41 

enough to reply in heat to Miss Olaine; but she 
had bethought herself now that she was likely to 
make the real culprit more trouble if she “ fought 
back.” 

Of course that “ real culprit ” was Tavia. The 
practical joke had assumed rather serious propor¬ 
tions, however. Tavia looked commiseratingly at 
Dorothy. When she caught her friend’s eye she 
mouthed: 

u I’ll tell her I did it, Doro.” 

“Don’t you do it! ” snapped Dorothy, almost 
out loud. “Let her find it out herself—if she 
can.” 

Dorothy was quite furious—to be doubted and 
insulted in this public way! She was almost glad 
that Tavia had originated the foolish joke with the 
cunning little pigs. Only—she well knew—in the 
end, Tavia must suffer for it. 

Miss Olaine was not a person to give up the 
trail so easily. Edna whispered that she would be 
“a red Indian” on the scent of the joker. Poor 
Tavia would have to “ take it ” in the end; for of 
course she would not let Dorothy suffer for her 
sins. 

The recitation hour drew to a close. Miss 
Olaine rapped for order at last. “ Miss Dale will 
remain,” she said. 

The other girls looked at Dorothy, and she sat 


42 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

down. But Tavia got up with an exclamation and 
tramped up to the desk. 

“You can let her go, Miss Olaine,” she de¬ 
clared. “ Doro had nothing to do with the pigs. 
I did it.” 

“What is that?” demanded the teacher, stiff¬ 
ening and turning very red. 

“ Doro didn’t have anything to do with putting 
the pigs in at the window. I did it before recita¬ 
tion. Doro didn’t even know I was going to do it.” 

Tavia was defiant, and held her head up. Miss 
Olaine seemed to be doubly enraged because she 
had been deluded into making a mistake in the 
identity of the culprit. 

“ Why didn’t you tell me so ? ” she demanded of 
Dorothy. 

“ I told you I was not guilty,” replied Dorothy. 

“ But why didn’t you tell me who was at fault? ” 

The girls all chorused a gasp of dismay. Doro¬ 
thy actually turned pale,with anger. 

“To tell on another girl?” she cried. “We 
don’t do things like that in Glenwood Hall, Miss 
Olaine.” 

“You are saucy, Miss!” declared the teacher. 
“ Let me tell you that Mrs. Pangborn shall hear 
of your impudence when she returns. As for you, 
Octavia—is that your name?” 

“ S< ? th ^y tel1 m e, Miss Olaine,” returned Tavia, 
drawling in her speech. 


A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL 43 

“You go into this room!” commanded Miss 
Olaine, pointing at the door behind which the pig¬ 
lets had been shut. “ You will find company there 
quite of your own kind, Miss. Come, march! I 
tell you, I mean to be obeyed. Go in there, Oc- 
tavia.” 

“ Oh—of course—if you mean it,” said Tavia, 
lightly. “And the company of the pigs will be pre¬ 
ferred to some I might mention. 

But this last the graceless girl was wise enough 
to murmur too low for the teacher to hear. She 
went into the closet-like room instantly. The girls 
at once heard the pigs begin squealing. Taviia was 
rescuing the pretty ribbons before Mr. Bensell 
should return for his five little porkers. 

Miss Olaine did not speak to Dorothy again, 
so the latter followed the other girls out of the 
classroom. Cologne was saying: 

“ She just made a mountain out of a molehill. It 
wasn’t nothing—just a joke. And now she is 
going to tear the whole school up by the roots 
about it.” 

“ You are just right, Rose-Mary,” agreed Ned 
Ebony. 

“Bear it in mind,” said Dorothy, firmly, “we 
are going to have a lot of trouble while that 
teacher remains in Glenwood School. Oh, dear 
me! I didn’t think I ever should be glad to leave 


44 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

the Glen for good; but if Miss Olaine stays till 
June I know I shall be delighted to get away from 
here.” 

“ Me, too!” “ And I! ” “ And we-uns! ” was 
the chorused agreement to this statement. 


CHAPTER VI 


DOROTHY IS “ POUNCED UPON ” 

Dorothy had two very serious problems in her 
mind all the time, and they sometimes interfered 
with the problems put forth by Miss Olaine to 
the class. The girl wanted to know where Mrs. 
Ann Hogan had her farm; and she wondered how 
she was to begin, even, to get into communication 
with Tom Moran, the big, redheaded brother that 
little Celia remembered “just as easy! ” 

“ It’s easy enough to guess where Celia came 
from—the ‘ Findling,’ I mean. There’s only one 
foundling asylum in the county and that is in the 
city. Celia has been used to the city all her life. 
I can write to the matron of the city children’s 
asylum and find out all she knows about Celia and 
her folks. 

“ But even she wasn’t able to find Tom Moran. 
It’s pretty sure that Celia knew what she was talk¬ 
ing about. She has got a big brother, and he went 
off to work before his aunt died, thinking he had 
left Celia in good care. 

45 


46 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ ‘He builds bridges, and things. 1 That’s what 
Celia says. Those sort of men travel about a] 
good deal. What does the paper call them—now 
—‘bridge and structural iron workers? 1 Isn’t 
that it? And they have a very strong union. 

“ I’ve heard daddy talking about them,” quoth 
Dorothy Dale. “And I’ve read about them in the 
papers, too. Very brave, hardy men they are, and 
they build the steel framework of the big office 
buildings—the great, tall skyscrapers—as well as 
bridges. 

“ Now, Tom Moran might have gone clear 
across the continent, following his job. Or he 
might be right around here somewhere. If he’s 
just one of the ordinary workmen I suppose he be¬ 
longs to the union. If he’s a foreman, or some¬ 
thing big in the work, he might not belong to the 
union; but they would know his name, just the 
same. 

“Now! ” reflected Dorothy. “I don’t believe 
that asylum matron ever thought to ask the union, 
in all these four years little Celia has been in her 
care. I’ll look up the local headquarters in the 
directory, and write them a nice letter about Tom 
Moran. 

“As for learning where Mrs. Hogan has taken 
Celia, I’ll inquire of every farmer I see. Mrs. 
Hogan’s farm can’t be very far from here.” 

Dorothy Dale had come to these conclusions be- 


DOROTHY IS POUNCED UPON 


47 


fore ever Tavia got into trouble with Miss Olaine, 
and been shut up in the dressing-room with the 
pigs. 

She had, indeed, gone to Mrs. Pangborn’s of¬ 
fice immediately after the recitation hour in which 
Tavia had fallen into disgrace, to look in the city 
directory for the address she wished to discover. 

The older pupils were allowed to refer to the 
school reference books, and the like, as they chose. 
Mrs. Pangborn never objected to their doing so. 

Therefore Dorothy’s surprise was the greater 
when, as she bent over the book she desired to 
consult, a harsh voice demanded: 

“ What are you doing in here, Miss? Is this 
the place for you at this hour?” 

It was Miss Olaine, and she was grimmer than 
before. Dorothy was more than ever sure that 
she would continually clash with this teacher. 

“ I was looking for something, Miss Olaine,” 
the girl said, stiffly. 

“Ask permission when you want to come into 
the office,” snapped the teacher. “And recitation 
hour is not the time for idling about. What is 
your class, Miss? ” 

“ I have half an hour with Miss Mingle next. 
But she isn’t ready for me,” replied Dorothy. 

“ Humph! that is an extra. You may skip that 
to-day and go to your next regular recitation.” 

“ But my music-” 



48 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“/ have charge here, Miss Dale. You and 
your friends would better understand it. I find the 
entire first class almost unmanageable. Aren’t you 
due at rhetoric and grammar? ” 

“ If Miss Mingle had not called me—yes,” said 
Dorothy, feeling revolutionary. Miss Olaine cer¬ 
tainly was trying! 

“ Go to your class, then—at once! ” commanded 
the teacher. “And remember that while I am in 
charge of Glenwood School, you girls do not have 
free access to this office. Ask permission if you 
wish to consult any book here.” 

And Dorothy had not found the address she 
desired! She went out of the room very angry 
at heart with Miss Olaine. She was so angry, in 
fact, that she felt just like disobeying her flatly! 

That was not like sensible Dorothy. To antag¬ 
onize the teacher would aid nobody; yet she felt 
just like doing so. 

Instead of mounting the stairs to the classroom 
in which the present recitation was under way, and 
from which she had been excused for her music 
lesson, she ran out of the building altogether and 
went around to the window of the dressing-room 
where Tavia was confined. 

Tavia must have reached the window by the aid 
of a stepladder, for it was quite high from the 
ground. Now the stepladder had been removed, 
the window was closed, and Dorothy was not at 


DOROTHY IS POUNCED UPON 49 

first sure that her friend was still in durance there. 

“ Tavia! ” she called. 

It was not until she had spoken the name twice 
that Tavia’s face appeared at the pane. Then 
the girl inside opened the window and smiled 
broadly down upon her chum. 

“ Is the ogress about?” asked Tavia. 

“ She’s in the office. I just had a flare-up with 
her,” admitted Dorothy. 

“ Oh, don’t you get into trouble over me, Doro,” 
begged Tavia. “ It isn’t worth while.” 

“ What is she going to do with you?” 

“ Boil me in oil, or some pleasant little pastime 
like that,” chuckled Tavia. 

“ Do be sensible.” 

“ I can’t. I’m lonesome. They’ve taken away 
the pigs.” 

“Oh, dear me, Tavia! That was a dreadful 
trick. How did you manage it? ” 

“Hist! cross your heart? Well, Sammy and I 
did it. But his father mustn’t know, for if he does 
Sammy says he’ll get 1 lambasted ’—whatever that 
may be.” 

“Well, I’m sorry you’re lonesome,” Dorothy 
said. “ But Miss Olaine isn’t likely to pity you any 
on that score-” 

A window was raised swiftly, and the teacher 
appeared. She must have been watching Dorothy 



50 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

from the office, and had come around here to this 
side of the building particularly to spy upon her. 

“ So! ” she exclaimed. “ You flaunt me, do you, 
Miss Dale? Didn’t I tell you to go to your 
class? ” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” replied Dorothy. “And I was 
going-” 

“ But you will take your own time about it, eh ? ” 
snapped the lady. “You may come in here at 
once. And tell that other girl to close her win¬ 
dow.” 

Xavia made a dreadful face and slammed down 
her window. Of course, Miss Olaine could not 
see the grimace. 

“ Come in here to me at once,” repeated Miss 
Olaine, and Dorothy obeyed. 

The teacher waited for her in the classroom. 
Dorothy had not felt so disturbed and angry with 
a teacher since she and Tavia were little girls and 
had got into trouble with Miss Ellis in the old Dal¬ 
ton public school! 

“Now, young lady,” snapped Miss Olaine, 
“ you may go into that room and remain with your 
friend until I choose to release you both. And I 
hope Mrs. Pangborn will return in season to take 
the responsibility of your further punishment off 
my hands.” 

“ Gracious! ” exclaimed Tavia, quite loud 
enough for the teacher to hear, when Dorothy was 


DOROTHY IS POUNCED UPON 


5i 


rudely thrust into the dressing closet by the 
shoulders, “ she thinks hanging’s too good for us, 
doesn’t she, Doro? ” 

But Dorothy was too angry to reply at first. She 
felt that the new teacher had gone quite beyond 
her rights in handling the matter. To push her 
into the room so! 

“Why,” thought Dorothy, “she might as well 
have struck me! And Mrs. Pangborn would not 
have allowed such a thing. We—we are almost 
grown up. It is an insult.” 

But she said nothing like this to Tavia. Besides, 
Tavia had brought punishment upon her own head 
in the first place by her practical joke. At the 
moment, Dorothy could not see that she was in 
anyway at fault. Miss Olaine had just “ pounced 
upon ” her, with neither right nor reason on her 
side! 

“And here we are, shut into this little old 
room,” croaked Tavia. “ Not even pigs for com¬ 
pany.” 

“Do be quiet, Tavia,” begged Dorothy. 
“ You’ll have her back—and she’ll do something 
worse to us.” 

“Here’s some books on the shelf,” said her 
friend. “Oh, dear! I wish they were story 
books. Only old textbooks.” 

“All right,” said Dorothy, more cheefully. 
“ Let’s get up lessons for to-morrow.” 


52 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“That’s no fun! ” cried Tavia, objecting. 

“ But it will help to pass away the time. I’m 
going to do it,” said Dorothy, firmly. 

“ Well—I may as well, too,” said Tavia, sighing. 

There was a small table and two chairs. They 
opened the books and sat down to study. The 
noon luncheon hour came and went and nobody 
came near the prisoners. Of course, long before 
this, Tavia had made sure the door was locked. 

“Not even bread and water,” groaned Tavia. 
“ She means to starve us into subjection, Doro.” 

“ I wish Mrs. Pangborn would come home,” 
said Dorothy Dale. 

“We’ll be living skeletons before then,” 
groaned her friend. 

But when it grew dark Miss Olaine appeared 
at the door. She brought a tray upon which was 
a small pitcher of skimmed milk, and two slices of 
very dry bread. 

“ Your supper, young ladies—and quite good 
enough for you,” she declared. “ Mrs. Pangborn 
will be at home on the midnight train. I have 
just received a telegram from her. You shall re¬ 
main here until she arrives. Then I shall gladly 
wash my hands of you.” 

“ My goodness! she can wash her hands just 
as soon as she likes, for all of me,” exclaimed 
Tavia. “A slice of bread and milk! why, I could 
eat a house, I’m so starved! ” 


CHAPTER VII 


A RAID 

Dorothy found a match on the shelf and lit 
the gas. It had grown pitch dark outside, and 
she drew the curtain, too. 

“ Just as snug as a bug in a rug,” quoted Tavia, 
chuckling. “ Only we can’t eat the rug, as the bug 
might, and so reduce our awful appetites. 
Couldn’t you eat a whole ox, Doro ? ” 

“And a minute ago you wanted to eat a house,” 
said Dorothy. “ Think of something more appro¬ 
priate.” 

“ I will. Nice, thin slices of boiled ham be¬ 
tween soft white bread—plenty of butter and 
some mustard—not too much. Pickles—just the 
very sourest kind. Some chicken salad with fresh 
lettuce leaves—home-made dressing, no bottled 
stuff. Stuffed olives. Peanut butter between gra¬ 
ham crackers—m-m-m! lovely! celery. And a 
big piece of frosted cake-” 

“ Stop! ” commanded Dorothy. “ Do you want 
to drive me quite into insurrection ? ” 

53 



54 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ I am already an insurrecto/* declared Tavla. 
“And I believe I can get just the sort of banquet 
I have outlined.” 

“At some nice hotel—in New York? ” 

“I know what they were going to have for sup¬ 
per to-night,” declared Tavia, and walked over to 
examine the locked door. 

“ Dou you mean to say we are going to have 
that kind of a supper?” demanded Dorothy, 
tragically. “ And we under arrest? ” 

“ M-m-m! ” said Tavia, thoughfully. “ See 
here, Doro! Got a hammer? ” 

“A hammer? Of course! A whole tool chest 
in my pocket.” 

“ Something to hammer with, then,” said Tavia, 
earnestly. “ If I had one I could open this door.” 

“ It’s locked.” 

“ Of course it is. But the hinges are on this 
side.” 

“Oh! you need a screw-driver!” cried Doro¬ 
thy, coming over to her. 

“ Nothing of the kind. I want something to 
knock out these pins—don’t you see? Then we 
can lift the door off its hinges and pull the bolt 
out of the lock. Ha! ” 

“ What is it?” 

“I’ve got it! ” cried Tavia, under her breath, 
and immediately dropped down upon the floor and 
began to take off her shoe. 


A RAID 


55 

Quick as it was off, she grasped the shoe by the 
foot and used the heel to start the pin of the 
lower hinge. In a moment the steel pin popped 
out; then Tavia knocked out the one in the upper 
hinge. 

“ Now for it, Doro,” whispered the bright girl. 
“ Put out the gas, so if anybody should be watch¬ 
ing. That’s it. Now—take hold and ease off the 
door. No noise now, my lady! ” 

The girls managed to pull the door toward 
them, got a firm hold upon the edge of it, and pried 
the bolt loose. The door was shoved back against 
the wall of the room and they could look out into 
the empty classroom. Light from out of doors— 
and that very faint—was all that illuminated the 
larger apartment. 

“Oh! if she catches us! ” gasped Dorothy. 

“ Don’t you fret. This is a regular hunger 
strike—just as though we were suffragettes and 
had been imprisoned. Only we don’t refuse to 
eat; we just refuse not to eat,” and Tavia giggled 
as she hastily laced up her shoe again. 

“Now, don’t you dare be afraid. I’m going 
on a raid, Doro. Kiss me good-bye, dear. If I 

never should retur-r-rn- Blub! blub! My 

handkerchief isn’t big enough to cry into. Lend 
me yours. 

“ ‘ Farewell, farewell, my own tr-r-rue lo-o-ove! 
Farewell-er, farewell-er’- 


56 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ I go where glory waits me—don’t you forget 
that, Doro. And something to eat, too, better 
than bread and milk. Hist I ” 

After this rigamarole, and with the stride of a 
stage villain, Tavia left the classroom. She did 
not ask, or expect, Dorothy to take part in the raid 
on the pantry; indeed, had there been any good in 
doing so, Dorothy would have advised against the 
scheme. 

Perhaps the girls had a right to a decent supper. 
At least, Dorothy had done nothing to deserve 
such harsh treatment from Miss Olaine. So both 
she and her chum defied the decree of the teacher. 
They’d actually be starved by midnight, when 
Mrs. Pangborn was expected to arrive. 

If Tavia was caught- 

Dorothy went to the corridor door and held 
it ajar, listening. Sometimes she heard girls’ 
laughter in the upper stories. A teacher passed, 
but did not see the girl behind the door. Bye and 
bye there was another stealthy tread. 

Miss Olaine ? No! It was a girl with her arm? 
full. 

“ Oh, Tavia! ” 

“It’s me! Lemme in,” exclaimed the raider, 
in a whisper. “Quick, now! We must get that 
door on its hinges again. And such a scrumptious 
lay-out, Doro! Mm-m-m! ” 

They did not light the gas. Tavia “ unloaded ” 



A RAID 


57 

upon the table. “ Mercy on us! the butter y s flatter 
than a pancake, she breathed. “ And the mayon¬ 
naise is all over the napkin. But never mind. We 
can lick it off! ” chuckled this reckless bandit. 

“Let’s get the door back,” urged Dorothy. 

“ Right! ” Tavia came to her assistance. They 
lifted it back into place; only Tavia turned the key 
which had been left in the lock, and put the key on 
the inside of the door. 

“What for? ” demanded the anxious Dorothy. 

“We won’t run the risk of having the ogress 
get in and spoil our supper,” declared Tavia. 
“ Then—the door goes on easier.” 

They got it hung in half a minute; then Tavia 
turned the key in the lock. 

“If worse comes to worst,” she said, “we’ll 
throw the key out of the window and let her hunt 
for the person who unlocked our door, gave us the 
supper, and ran away with the key.” 

“Oh, Tavia! We’ll both get into serious 
trouble.” 

“ Sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof,” 
misquoted Tavia. “Now the gas! Let me spread 
this out. What do you think of this banquet, 
Doro? ” 

Dorothy could not refuse her share of the good¬ 
ies. There was all that Tavia had promised. She 
seemed to have known to the last item just what 
the pantry had contained. And she had brought 


58 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


a bottle of real fizzy sarsaparilla and two glasses. 

“ Do you think I’d let a person like Miss Olaine 
get the best of me? ” demanded Tavia, with pride. 
“ Bread and milk, indeed! Well, I guess-” 

“ Hush! ” whispered Dorothy. 

There was a firm step in the classroom. They 
heard it mount the platform and then came a fum¬ 
bling at the door. 

“Oh! she’s found us out,” breathed Dorothy, 
seizing Tavia’s wrist. 

“She’s found us in, you mean,” returned her 
friend, almost exploding with laughter. “And 
what more can she expect? ” 

“Girls! ” exclaimed Miss Olaine’s harsh voice. 

No answer. “Girls!” repeated the teacher. 
“ Miss Dale! Miss Octavia! ” 

“ Yes, ma’am! ” drawled Tavia, yawning pro¬ 
digiously. “ Yes, ma’am! ” 

“You need not tell me you were asleep,” 
snapped the teacher. “ Where is the key to this 
door? ” 

Tavia had removed the key from the lock and 
now held it up for Dorothy to see. Then she laid 
it on the window sill before she answered: 

“ I’m sure, Miss Olaine, / haven’t the key. You 
locked us in-” 

“And I left the key in the door, Miss Imper¬ 
tinence,” interposed the teacher. 

“ If the key was on the outside and we are on 




A RAID 


59 


the inside,” said Tavia, calmly, “ of course you 
do not accuse us of appropriating it, Miss 
Olaine? ” 

Somebody has been here, Miss. I demand to 
know who it was.” 

“ I can tell you truthfully, Miss Olaine,” said 
Tavia, still calmly, “that I have seen nobody at 
the door.” 

“ Miss Dale, where is the key? ” 

Like a flash Tavia opened the lower sash and 
threw the key out into the darkness. She pointed 
to Dorothy and mouthed the words she was to say 
—and they were perfectly truthful: 

“ Say you don’t know where! ” commanded 
Tavia, in this silent way. 

“Miss Dale!” exclaimed the teacher again. 
“ Do you know where the key is ? ” 

“No.” 

“ Is that all you can say, Miss? ” 

“We have not got it—of that I am sure,” de¬ 
clared Dorothy. 

Tavia had calmly gone back to her salad and 
peanut butter sandwiches. Her mouth was so 
full when Miss Olaine spoke to her again that she 
could hardly answer. 

“Miss Octavia Travers! Who removed the 
key from this lock? You know who it was.” 

“ I’m—I’m-” 

“What is the matter with you? Your mouth 



6 o 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


is full. You are eating, Miss. Where did you get 
the food? Who has been here and supplied you 
with more than I gave you at supper time? ” 

“ There hasn’t been a soul at that door except 
yourself,” declared Tavia, exactly, “ as far as I 
know.” 

“You are not telling the truth, Miss! ” declared 
the teacher, warmly. 

Mrs. Pangborn’s system of conducting Glen- 
wood Hall did not include doubting the word of 
her pupils. The girls were put on their honor 
from the hour they first entered the school, and 
seldom had the principal been taken advantage of. 

Dorothy and Tavia looked at each other. Both 
were flushed and all the laughter had gone out of 
Tavia’s brown eyes. 

“ Why, how horrid! ” she gasped. 

“What is that, Miss?” demanded the angry 
teacher outside. 

And then Dorothy spoke up. “We refuse to 
discuss the matter with you any further, Miss 
Olaine—until Mrs. Pangborn arrives. In this 
school the girls are not accused of falsehoods.” 

Miss Olaine was silent a moment. Then they 
heard her walk heavily away from the locked door. 


CHAPTER VIII 


CONDITIONS 

44 Two of the girls shut up in the little dressing- 
room? And the key missing? Suppose there 
should be a fire, Miss Olaine?” 

Mrs. Pangborn had just arrived. She had not 
even removed her bonnet, only untied its strings. 
And she sat with her feet on the fender of the 
open fire place where the gaslog burned in the 
office. It was a half hour after midnight and 
Glenwood Hall was supposed to be as silent as the 
tomb at that time. 

“ I thought of that. It is a trick,” said the dark 
teacher, hastily, and wringing her hands together 
in the peculiar way she had. It showed that Miss 
Olaine was a very nervous person. 

“ How do you mean—a trick? ” asked the prin¬ 
cipal, quietly. 

“ Some person in league with the two girls re¬ 
moved the key, of course. I am sure it was done 
so as to keep me out while they ate forbidden, 
food.” 

61 


62 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ But did they not have their supper? ” 

“ Bread and milk; quite enough for them.” 
“And for luncheon? You say they were shut 
into the room in the forenoon.” 

“ I—I thought it would bring them to terms 
quicker. A little fast surely would not hurt them,” 
said Miss Olaine, hesitatingly. 

“Perhaps not,” agreed Mrs. Pangborn, after 
a moment of silence, but looking at her new assist¬ 
ant in rather a curious way. “ However, I do not 

approve of corporal punishment-” 

“ Corporal punishment! ” 

“Yes. Underfeeding must come under that 
head,” said Mrs. Pangborn, but with a laugh. 
“And you think they somehow tricked you and got 
more supper than you intended?” 

“I am positive. I have been to the pantry. 

That door should be locked-” 

“ Oh, no! ” cried the principal. “ I never lock 
things away from my girls.” 

“A mistake, Mrs. Pangborn,” declared the as¬ 
sistant, with growing confidence. “Youth is nat¬ 
urally treacherous.” 

“ Oh, my dear Miss Olaine! ” exclaimed the 
principal of Glenwood. “ I am sorry your experi¬ 
ence has led to that belief. Mine has not—and 
it has the advantage of yours in extent of time,” 
and she smiled again. 

“ I am sure, Miss Olaine, you and I are going 




CONDITIONS 63 

to get on beautifully; but you do not understand 
my girls.” 

“ I understand both of these I have shut 

U p_»> 

“ Thank goodness there is a master-key to all 
the doors right here on my ring,” interrupted Mrs. 
Pangborn, shaking the jingling bunch of keys. 14 In 
a moment—as soon as my feet are warm—we will 
go and let those poor girls out and send them to 
bed.” 

“ Mrs. Pangborn! you evidently do not consider 
the serious nature of the offense,” cried Miss 
Olaine, again wringing her bony hands, her eyes 
flashing. 

“No. True. I did not ask you. What hap¬ 
pened?” 

Miss Olaine told her story—all about the pigs, 
and her fright, and Dorothy being disobedient, 
and defying her, as Miss Olaine said. But she 
neglected to call either culprit by name. 

“ I did not expect insurrection to begin so quick¬ 
ly, Miss Olaine,” said the principal, gravely. 
“And I gather from your statement that two of 

my girls- They belong to the upper class, you 

say? ” 

“Yes, Mrs. Pangborn. Young ladies old 
enough-” 

“And their names?” 

“ Misses Travers and Dale.” 




64 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ Tavia Travers! ” gasped the older lady. “ Of 
course! Who else would have invented such a 
perfectly ridiculous thing as introducing pigs into 
the school room?” 

“ I knew you would be amazed, madam.” 

“Not at all,” the principal hastened to say. 
“ Nothing Tavia ever does surprises me. But the 
other—not Dorothy Dale?” 

“ Yes, Miss Dale.” 

“ Oh, Miss Olaine! there must be some mistake 
there. I know Dorothy so well,” said Mrs. Pang- 
born, gravely. “The two are always together; 
but I am sure that whatever Dorothy told you 
was true. And Tavia, too, for that matter.” 

“ I am positive they were endeavoring to mis¬ 
lead me. And they would not tell who had helped 
them, or who else was in the plot to put those pigs 
in this house-” 

“ Miss Olaine! ” gasped Mrs. Pangborn, sud¬ 
denly. “ That is something I forgot to speak of 
when I went away in such a hurry the day after you 
came to Glenwood.” 

“What is that? ” asked the surprised assistant. 

“ I never ask one of my girls to tell on another. 
They are all on honor, here. I do not expect any 
girl to play the spy. Indeed, I punish severely 
only those who show such a tendency. You were 
wrong to expect either of those girls to give any 
information which might lead to trouble for their 



CONDITIONS 65 

schoolmates. Whereas, if they say nobody else 
was aware of the prank-” 

“ Miss Travers refuses to admit that she had 
any help at all.” 

“ If she says it is her own performance, you 
may believe it is so.” 

“ Oh, I do not believe in giving such latitude 
to mere school girls,” declared Miss Olaine, and 
now she was quite heated again. 

Mrs. Pangborn looked at her seriously. “ You 
have much to learn yet, I fear, Miss Olaine,” she 
said, quietly. “ Reports of your erudition and 
management of studies in a great public school 
urged me to engage you as my assistant; but you 
must be guided by me in the management of my 
girls—that is sure. 

“ You might have known that shutting a girl 
like Tavia Travers into that little room would be 
no real punishment. She would merely put on her 
thinking cap and endeavor to bring about some¬ 
thing that would make you look the more ridicu¬ 
lous.” 

“ Mrs. Pangborn! ” 

“Yes. And she has succeeded in doing so; 
hasn’t she?” 

“How would you have had me punish her?” 
demanded Miss Olaine, reddening under the prin¬ 
cipal’s rather stern eye. 

“ Oh, that is another matter! ” and the older 



66 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


woman laughed. “A punishment to fit the crime 
is rather difficult to invent in Tavia’s case. I be¬ 
lieve I should have demanded from her an ex* 
haustive composition upon swine, from the earliest 
mention of the beast in history, down through all 
the ages to and including the packing-house age. I 
would have made Tavia industrious, and perhaps 
taught her something. 

“As for Dorothy- Well, you have quite 

mistaken her character, Miss Olaine. She is the 
soul of truth, and while she may have been loyal to 
her friend, that should not be considered a crime; 
should it? 

“Let us go now and interview the culprits. 
And, if you agree, I think they have both had pun¬ 
ishment enough. Suppose you tell them to go to 
their room and that they will not be expected to 
appear at prayers or breakfast to-morrow morn¬ 
ing. I do not approve of my girls losing their 
beauty sleep.” 

And that is why Dorothy and Tavia got out 
of their difficulty so easily. They didn’t under¬ 
stand it—just then. But Dorothy suspected and 
she knew that Mrs. Pangborn was far too wise to 
give them an opportunity to openly face Miss 
Olaine and have judgment rendered accordingly. 

“But I dislike her just the same,” whispered 
Dorothy. 



CONDITIONS 67 

“ Of course we do! And she’ll try to catch us 
again-” 

“Then behave, Tavia. The whole trouble 
started with your trying to plague her,” declared 
her friend. 

“ Well! I—like—that,” murmured Tavia in a 
tone that showed she did not like it, at all. “Just 
you wait, Doro. We haven’t heard the last of 
this. Old Olaine will just be waiting for half a 
chance to pounce on us again.” 

Dorothy did not get at what she was looking 
for in the directory until the afternoon of the next 
day. Then she was very careful to ask permis¬ 
sion to go to the office for reference. 

She found the name and address of the secretary 
of the bridge builders’ union, and she wrote that 
afternoon asking about Tom Moran. She ex¬ 
plained just why she wanted to learn about him, 
and his whereabouts, and tried to put before the 
person she wrote to the pitiful history of Celia 
Moran in a way that might engage his interest. 

Dorothy had told nobody about Celia—not even 
Tavia. Of course her chum would have been in¬ 
terested in the child from the “Findling” and 
her lost brother. But just now—at the beginning 
of the term—there really was so much going on at 
Glenwood that aside from the hours that they 
spent in their imprisonment, the two friends had 
very little time to talk together. 



68 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


This last half-year <at Glenwood was bound to 
be a very busy one. Some studies in which Doro¬ 
thy was proficient Tavia did not stand so well in, 
and vice versa . They had to study very hard, and 
when Tavia “ broke out ” as she was bound to do 
every little while, it seemed absolutely necessary 
that she “let off steam.” 

Mrs. Pangborn understood, and so did the older 
teachers. But Miss Olaine was naturally a marti¬ 
net, and she was very nervous and irritable in the 
bargain. She could not overlook the least exuber¬ 
ance of schoolgirl enthusiasm. 

So, inside of a week, Tavia was “ conditioned.” 
Each black mark that she had against her in de¬ 
portment had to be “worked off” before the end 
of the half, or she could not graduate. 

And in seeking to shield her chum again from 
the consequences of her folly, Dorothy found her¬ 
self conditioned, too. Mrs. Pangborn demanded 
her presence in the office, and for almost the first 
time in her career at Glenwood, Dorothy Dale 
found herself at odds with the kind principal of 
the school. 

“ I am sure I have been here long enough for 
you to know me quite well, Mrs. Pangborn,” she 
said, with some heat, to the good lady who loved 
her. “Have I changed so much, do you think? 
Nobody else reports me but Miss Olaine-” 

“You are changing every day, my dear. We 



CONDITIONS 


69 

all are,” said the principal, firmly. “ But I do not 
believe your heart has changed, Dorothy Dale. 
Unfortunately Miss Olaine’s manner made all you 
older girls dislike her at the start. But have you 
stopped to think that perhaps there is something 
in her life—some trouble, perhaps—that makes 
her nervous and excitable? ” 

“ Well—but—we-” 

“You have never before been uncharitable,” 
smiled Mrs. Pangborn. “Try and bear patiently 
with Miss Olaine. If you knew all about her you 
would pity her condition, I am sure. No I I can¬ 
not tell you. It is not my secret, my dear. But 
try to understand her better—and do, Dorothy, 
keep Tavia within bounds! ” 

The principal knew that this line of pleading 
would win over Dorothy Dale every time! 



CHAPTER IX 


AN EXPEDITION AFOOT 

“Yes,” said Miss Olaine, who became deeply 
interested when she thought she had the attention 
of her class, and the matter under discussion was 
one that appealed particularly to herself. “ What 
we want in literature is direct and simple English. 

“ I wish you young ladies to mark this: Epi¬ 
grams, or flowers of rhetoric, or so-called ‘fine 
writing,’ does not mark scholarship. The better 
understanding one has of words and their mean¬ 
ings, the more simply thought may be expressed. 

“ Do you attend me?” she added, sharply, star¬ 
ing straight at Tavia. “ Then to-morrow each of 
you bring me, expressed in her own language upon 
paper, her consideration of what simple English 
means.” 

And Tavia received another “ condition ” for 
presenting and reading aloud to the class, as re¬ 
quested, the following: 

“ Those conglomerated effusions of vapid intel¬ 
lects, which posed in lamented attitudes as the emo¬ 
tional and intellectual ingredients of fictional real- 
70 


AN EXPEDITION AFOOT 


7 1 


Ism, fall far short of the obvious requirements of 
contemporary demands and violate the traditional 
models of the transcendent minds of the Eliza¬ 
bethan era of glorious memory.” 

“ You consider yourself very smart, I have no 
doubt, Miss Travers,” said Miss Olaine, sneering- 
ly, “ in inventing a specimen of so-called English 
exactly opposed to the simple language I de¬ 
manded. You evidently consider that you have 
been sent here to school to play . We will see what 
a little extra work will do for you.” 

And so Tavia had certain tasks to perform that 
kept her indoors on the next Saturday half- holi¬ 
day. That is why Dorothy chanced to set out 
alone from the school for a long walk. 

It was a cold afternoon, and the sun was hid¬ 
den. There seemed to be a haze over the whole 
sky. But there was no snow on the ground, and 
the latter was as hard as iron and rang under her 
feet. 

Jack Frost had fettered the ponds and streams 
and frozen the earth, in preparation for the snow 
that was coming. But Dorothy, not being very 
weatherwise, did not guess what the atmospher¬ 
ic conditions foretold. 

It seemed to her to be a very delightful day for 
walking, for there was no rough wind, and the 
paths were so hard. She was only sorry that 
Tavia was not with her. 


72 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


It was the apparent peacefulness of the day that 
tempted her off the highroad into a piece of wood 
with which she was not very familiar. Indeed, 
she would better have turned back toward the 
school at the time she entered the wood, for she 
had then come a long way. 

The path she finally struck into was narrow 
and winding, and the trees loomed thickly on 
either hand. Before she realized her position, it 
was growing dusk and fine snow was sifting down 
upon her—from the thick branches of the trees, 
she thought at first. 

“But no! that can’t be,” urged Dorothy, sud¬ 
denly, and aloud. “ There hasn’t been any snow 
for a week, and surely that which fell last would 
not have lain upon the branches so long. I de¬ 
clare! it’s a storm started. I must get back to 
Glenwood.” 

She turned square around—she was positive she 
did so—and supposedly took the back track. But 
there were intersecting paths, and all she could 
see of the sky overhead was a gray blotch of cloud, 
out of which the snow sifted faster and faster. 
She had no idea of the points of the compass. 

She went on, and on. “ I really must get out 
of this and reach the road,” Dorothy told herself. 
“ Otherwise I shall be drifting about the woods all 
night—and it’s altogether too cold to even contem¬ 
plate that as a possibility.” 


AN EXPEDITION AFOOT 


73 


Being cheerful, however, did not culminate in 
Dorothy’s finding the end of the path at once. 
And when she did so—coming suddenly out into 
an open place which she did not recognize—the 
fine snow was driving down so fast that it almost 
blinded her. 

“This is not the road,” thought the girl, with 
the first shiver of fear that she had felt. “ I have 
got turned about. I shall have to ask-” 

'Whom? Through the snow she could see no 
house—no building of any kind. She stood and 
listened for several moments, straining her ears 
to catch the faintest sound above the swish of the 
driving snow. 

There was no other sound. The wind seemed to 
be rising, and the snow had already gathered to 
the depth of several inches while she had been 
rambling in the woods. 

“Really,” thought Dorothy. “I never saw 
snow gather so fast before.” 

She had little trouble at first following the path 
on the edge of the wood. She knew very well it 
was not the highway; but it must lead somewhere 
—and to somewhere she must very quickly make 
her way! 

“ If I don’t want to be snowed under completely 
—be a regular lost ‘babe in the wood’—I must 
arrive at some place very soon! ” was her decision. 

The path was a cart track. There was a half- 




DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


74 

covered worm-fence on one hand and the edge of 
the wood on the other. She had no idea whether 
she was traveling in the direction of Glenwood 
Hall, or exactly the opposite way. 

“ Swish! swish! swish! ” hissed the snow. It 
had a sort of soothing sound; but the fact that she 
was lost in it was not a soothing idea at all to 
Dorothy. 

She staggered on, stumbling in the frozen path, 
and realizing very keenly that the snow was gath¬ 
ering no faster than the cold was increasing. With 
the dropping of night the temperature was slid¬ 
ing downward with great rapidity. 

Dorothy Dale was in real peril. The driving 
snow blinded her; she lost the line of the fence fin¬ 
ally, and knew that she was staggering through an 
open field. She was still in the winding cart-path, 
for she fell into and out of the ruts continually; 
but she was traveling across an open farm. The 
sheltering wood was behind her and the snow 
drove down upon her, harder than before. 

She halted, her back to the increasing wind, and 
tried to peer ahead. A wall of drifting snow lim¬ 
ited the view. She raised her voice and shouted— 
again and again! 

There came no reply. Not even a dog barked. 
She seemed alone in a world of drifting snow, and 
now she was really terrified. 

She was benumbed by the cold and it would be 


AN EXPEDITION AFOOT 


75 

impossible for her to travel much farther. If she 
did not reach some refuge soon- 

Dorothy plunged on into the storm, scrambling 
over the rough path, and occasionally raising her 
voice in cries for help. But she was so breathless 
and spent that she traveled slowly. 

Here was a fence corner. The way was open 
into a narrow lane. Several huge oak trees in a 
row bulked big before her as she pressed on. She 
could not remember ever having seen the spot be¬ 
fore. 

But Dorothy believed a house must be near. 
Surely she would not be lost—covered up by the 
snow and frozen to death—near to a human habi¬ 
tation ? 

“ There must be somebody living around here! ” 
she murmured, plowing on through the drifts. 
“ Help; help! ” 

Her faint cry brought no response. She was 
becoming confused as well as weary. The wind 
increased in force so rapidly that when she again 
halted and leaned back against it, it seemed to the 
weakened girl as though she were lying in some¬ 
body’s arms! 

The snow swept around her like a mantle. It 
gathered deeply at her feet. She no longer felt the 
keen air, but was sinking into a pleasant lethargy. 

There was peril in this, and at another time 
Dorothy would have understood it fully. But 



76 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


she was not now in a state to understand what 
threatened her. She was only drowsy—weak— 
almost insensible. Another moment and she would 
have fallen in the snow and sunk into that sleep 
from which there would be no awakening. 

And then, to her dim eyes, appeared a sudden 
glow of lamplight ahead. It could not be far 
away, for she heard the hinges of a door creak, 
and then a voice reached her ears: 

“ Come in here! What are you doing out in 
that snow—ye good-for-nothin’ ? Ain’t ye got no 
sinse, I wanter know? Av all the young ’uns that 
iver was bawn, it’s you is the wust av th’ lot. 
Come in here! ” 

Dorothy was aroused by these words. For a 
moment she thought the woman who spoke must 
be addressing her. Then she heard a thin little 
voice answer: 

“ Oh, Mrs. Hogan! I know I heard somebody 
hollerin’ in the snow. It’s somebody what’s lost, 
Mrs. Hogan.” 

“ Nonsinse! Come away, now—I’ll have no 
more av yer foolin’, Cely Moran. I’ll sind ye ter 
bed widout yer supper if ye don’t come in out o’ 
that snow-” 

Dorothy hardly understood yet; but almost in¬ 
voluntarily she raised her voice in a cry of: 

“Celia! Celia Moran!” 



AN EXPEDITION AFOOT 77 

“Do you hear that, Mrs. Hogan?” shrieked 
the shrill voice of the child. 

“ Bless us an’ save us! ” gasped the woman. 
“ The saints preserve us! ’Tis a ghost, it is.” 

“ What’s a ghost, Mrs. Hogan? ” demanded the 
inquisitive Celia, quick to seize upon a new word. 

“ ’Tis a Pixie. Who knows yer name in this 
place? Come away, child! ” 

Dorothy, who heard them plainly now, cried out 
again. She staggered forward into the dim radi¬ 
ance of the light that shone from the farmhouse 
kitchen. 

“ There she is! ” Dorothy heard the little one 
say. Then she plunged forward to her knees. 
Mrs. Ann Hogan, the grenadier, came flying out 
of the doorway and gathered Dorothy right up in 
her strong arms. 

“ Git out from under fut, ye nuisance! ” she 
commanded, speaking to Celia. u Av coorse ’tis 
somebody in trouble. Make way, there! Lemme 
near the stove wid her. 

“ Sure, ’tis a most be-uchiful young leddy as ever 
was. An’ she was lost in the snow—thrue for yez! 
Sure her folks will be payin’ well for her bein’ 
saved from death this night. 

“ Shut the door, Cely. Put on the kettle—she 
must have somethin’ hot. Stir yer stumps, Celyv 
Moran, or I’ll be the death of ye! ” 


CHAPTER X 


AT THE CASTLE OF THE OGRESS 

There was a buzzing in Dorothy’s ears; it 
seemed as though she could not be herself, but 
must be somebody else. “Herself” was still out 
in that dreadful snowstorm—sinking to a fatal 
sleep in the soft drifts. 

Yet all the time she heard—distantly, but suffi¬ 
ciently distinct—the clatter of Mrs. Ann Hogan’s 
tongue, and the gasping, interrupted speech of lit¬ 
tle Celia Moran. At first Dorothy thought her 
rescue must be a dream. 

“Take off her shoes—do ye hear me, ye little 
nuisance?” commanded the big woman. “Sure, 
’tis jest about done for, she is. Cely! Cely 
Moran I did ye bring the eggs as I told ye? ” 
b “Oh, dear, me, Mrs. Hogan,” said the little 
girl. “ I was that scared-” 

“ Thim eggs! ” exclaimed the woman. “ Where 
be they? ” 

“ I dropped the basket when I heard the lady 
holler-” 


78 





SHE STAGGERED FORWARD INTO THE DIM RADIANCE OF THE LIGHT. 

Dorothy Dale’s Promise. Page 77 






























- 





- * 






















AT THE CASTLE OF THE OGRESS 79 

“ Go for thim! They’ll be froze in another 
minnit—an’ eggs fawty-two cints th’ dozen at the 
store! Mind, now! if ye’ve broke thim, I’ll wal¬ 
lop ye.” 

Dorothy knew that the door was opened again, 
for a blast of cold wind came in. But she could 
not open her eyes. The lids were too heavy. 
Mrs. Hogan was rubbing her hands between her 
own—which were as rough as nutmeg graters! 

“Here ye are,” declared the woman, still 
kneeling before the settee on which she had laid 
Dorothy. She spoke to the child. “Are they 
broke, I ax ye? ” 

“ No, ma’am! No, ma’am, Mrs. Hogan,” stut¬ 
tered Celia’s shrill little voice. “ Oh, I didn’t 
break none; but the hulls come off two or 
three-” 

“ Little nuisance! ” snapped the woman. “And 
ye’d lie about it, too. Put ’em careful on the shelf 
—or I’ll be the death of ye! Lit another egg be 
broken-” 

The unfinished threat seemed to fill the child 
with terror. Dorothy heard her sobbing softly. 
Then she crept to Dorothy’s feet again and con¬ 
tinued to unlace the bigger girl’s shoes. When 
they were drawn off Mrs. Hogan began to rub the 
girl’s feet. They were so cold and stiff that it 
seemed to Dorothy as though they would be 
•broken right off in the woman’s hard hands. 




8o 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


She forced her eyes open, and saw the big 
woman on her knees. Celia’s wondering little 
face was close to her own. Dorothy sat up with 
sudden energy. 

“ Oh! oh! oh! ” whispered Celia. “ It is my 
dear, dear young lady! ” 

“ Why, Celia-” 

“Is it knowin’ aich other ye bes?” demanded 
Mrs. Hogan, suspiciously. Dorothy was half 
afraid of this muscular Amazon. She thought it 
best to tell the whole truth. 

“ I saw Celia in the Belding station the day you 
brought her home from the city foundling asylum, 
Mrs. Hogan,” she said, simply. 

“Arrah! the little baggage! ” grumbled the 
woman. “ An’ she niver said a wor-r-rd about it— 
bad ’cess to her! ” 

“ I expect she was afraid you would not like it,” 
observed Dorothy, quietly. “ It was not Celia’s 
fault. I spoke to her myself. No, Mrs. Hogan! 
never mind rubbing my feet any more. Thank you. 
They will be quite warm in a minute.” 

Somehow she did not want the great, coarse 
woman to touch her. 

“Well, now,” said Mrs. Hogan, rising to her 
feet, and standing with her hands on her hips and 
her arms akimbo, “well, now, will ye be tellin’ 
me where ye come from, young leddy?” 



AT THE CASTLE OF THE OGRESS 81 


l< From Glenwood Hall school. I am Dorothy 
Dale.” 

“ Indade! And do they know where ye be? ” 

“ Why, I didn’t know myself where I was until 
I heard Celia’s voice,” declared Dorothy. “ She 
told me she was going to live with you. But— 
but I don’t really know the situation of this farm, 
Mrs. Hogan. You see, I got lost in the woods, 
and in the storm. It came on to snow so fast and 
so suddenly.” 

“Yis—I see,” grunted Mrs. Hogan. “I kin 
tell ye how far ye air from the highway. ’Tis 
eight mile, if it’s a step.” 

“ Oh, dear! I must have been wandering farther 
and farther away from the highway all the time.” 

“Thrue for ye! Well, ye want to retur-r-rn, I 
make no doubt—as soon as ye can? ” 

“Yes, indeed,” said the girl, quickly. “I am 
getting nice and warm. It was silly of me to 

almost lose consciousness-” 

“In a short time ye’d been dead in the snow,” 
declared the woman, bluntly. “And ye can thank 
yer stars I found ye. Yis, indeed. Yer friends 
will doubtless thank me, too,” and she spoke grim- 

ly- 

Dorothy was remembering more clearly now. 
She had heard the woman say something about 
being paid for taking care of her—she could easily 



82 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


believe that Mrs. Hogan would do no kindness 
save through a mercenary motive. 

“ Do you suppose I can get back to school to¬ 
night, Mrs. Hogan? ” she asked, rather timidly. 

“ And in this stor-r-rm, is it? ” 

“ But Mrs. Pangborn will be worried.” 

“Who’s she—the head teacher, is it? Well! 
Now, do yez think yez could find yer way alone, 
Miss? ” 

“ Oh, I am afraid not,” admitted Dorothy, look¬ 
ing at the snow banking against the windows of 
the farmhouse kitchen. 

“Nor ye couldn’t walk it, not even if I went 
with ye?” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Hogan! You wouldn’t attempt such 
a thing? ” 

The grenadier shook herself. She was more 
than six feet tall, and her shoulders were wide 
and her arms long. She was really a giantess. 

“Sure, I’ve tackled har-r-rder jobs,” she said. 
“ But mebbe I kin get Jim Bentley to put the hosses 
t’ th’ pung. But ye’ll pay for thim? ” 

“ I’d gladly pay what you ask-” 

Tin dollars, then,” said the woman, quickly. 

Tis wuth it, to take ye home through the snow 
this night.” 

" ^—I’ll Pay it, Mrs. Hogan,” said Dorothy, 
faintly. “At least, Mrs. Pangborn will pay it. 
I haven’t the money.” 



AT THE CASTLE OF THE OGRESS 83 

“Well! I’ll see Jim—Is he out to the stables, 
Cely?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the child, who had been 
gazing at Dorothy all this time with wide open 
eyes. “ But one of the hosses is down, ma’am.” 

“What’s that? What’s that ye tell me?” ex¬ 
claimed the woman, turning on Celia, angrily. 
“ Down in the stall, ye mane ? ” 

“Yes, ma’am. I saw it. And Mr. Bentley, 
he was sayin’ nawful things about it-” 

“ Sayin’ what ? ” demanded Mrs. Hogan. 

“ He was swearin’ jes’ awful,” pursued the little 
girl, in an awed whisper. 

“Swearin’; was he? What do ye know about 
swearin’, plague o’ me life?” said the woman. 
“ Till me what he said? ” 

“Oh, Mrs. Hogan! I couldn’t,” gasped Celia, 
shaking her head. “ It—it’s wicked to swear.” 

“ You tell me-” 

“ I couldn’t,” repeated Celia. “ But you say 
over all of the very baddest cuss words you know, 
Mrs. Hogan, and I’ll tell you when you come to 
’em—jes’ what Mr. Bentley said.” 

Dorothy suddenly wanted to laugh, although she 
was half frightened still of the ogress. Mrs. Ho¬ 
gan raised her hand as though to box the little 
girl’s ears; but then she thought better of it. 

“Can ye bate that, Miss?” she demanded of 
Dorothy. “ ’Tis alius the way. The young ’un is 




8 4 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


as smart as a steel trap. ’Tis the way she be 
alius gittin’ the best of me. 

Well, now! ’tis not to the school ye’ll get this 
night, then. Ye can see that? ” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Hogan! ” 

“ And the stor-r-rm is bad, too. Aven with two 
bosses we might not win through aisy. And with 
only wan—Arrah! ye’ll haf ter stay the night out, 
Miss. I s’pose ye’ll willin’ly pay for it? ” 

I am sure, Mrs. Hogan,” Dorothy said, “you 
will lose nothing by giving me shelter.” 

1 dunno. Rich folks ain’t as lib’ral as they 
might be. And ye’d never cra’led—not on yer 
ban’s an’ knees—to the next neighbor. Mind 
that, now! ” 

“ I am quite sure,” said Dorothy, humbly, “ that 
I should have fallen in the snow had not your 
house been near.” 

“ Well! I’ll make ye somehow comferble. Till 
/namin’ anyhow. Thin we’ll see. If it kapes on 
snowin’ like this, though, Miss, ’twill be a blizzard 
an’ no knowin’ when ye’ll git back to that school.” 

“°nly Mrs. Pangborn—and Tavia—and all 
the others—won’t be scared about me,” murmured 
Dorothy. 

“ They’ll be sure ye warn’t fule enough to go on, 
and on, when it began ter snow so,” grunted the 
woman. “ ’Tis lucky our frinds think better av 
our sinse than we desarve. They’ll be sure ye wint 


AT THE CASTLE OF THE OGRESS 85 

into some house when it began to storm so hard, 
me gur-r-rl.” 

Meanwhile Dorothy had removed her hat and 
coat and Mrs. Hogan hung them to dry behind 
the big cookstove which set well out from the 
chimney-piece. She advised her guest to sit up to 
the stove and dry the bottom of her skirt, while 
she herself got into a man’s storm-coat and gloves, 
lit a lantern, and sallied forth, as she said, “ to see 
what that ormadoun, Jim Bentley, was doing to the 
hoss.” 

The moment she was gone Celia ran into Dor¬ 
othy’s open arms. The child clung around the 
neck of Dorothy, and whispered: 

“ Don’t you be afraid, lady. She won’t hurt 
you” 

“Does she hurt you, Celia?” demanded the 
older girl. “ Does she whip you.” 

“Oh, no! Not unless I’m real bad. But—but 
she doesn’t like little girls—not a little, teeny bit. 

I—I wisht I lived with somebody that liked little 
girls, lady.” 

“ Don’t call me that, dear,” said Dorothy, has¬ 
tily, and wiping away her tears. The little one 
was dry-eyed as she had been that day in the rail¬ 
road station. “ My name is Dorothy—Dorothy 
Dale. Can you remember that?” 

“Oh, yes! It’s so pretty,” said Celia, smiling 


86 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


up at her wistfully. “ And please, can I ask you 
a question, Dorothy Dale—please?” 

“All you want to, dear,” cried her friend. 

“Oh!” cried Celia, clasping her little, clawlike 
hands, “ have you found Tom Moran yet? Have 
you found my brother? ” 


CHAPTER XI 


SNOWBOUND 

The earnestness in the little, shrewd face, the 
quaver of her voice, the clutch of her fingers 
around Dorothy’s neck, all impressed the girl from 
Glenwood Hall as to just how much the finding 
of the big, lost brother meant to little Celia 
Moran. 

“I haven’t found him yet, dear,” she said, 
brokenly. “ But I will —I will —find him. I have 
written a letter, and I am going to keep on search¬ 
ing—Oh, my dear! I know I shall find him for 
you in the end. Just you have patience.” 

“That’s what the matron used to say at the 
Findling,” said Celia. “ But, do you know patience 
is a nawful hard thing to keep ? ” 

“ I expect it is, dear.” 

“ And you’ll be sure to find the right Tom Mor¬ 
an,” urged the little girl. “You know, he’s big, 
and he’s got ever so red hair, and he builds 
bridges and things.” 

“ I shall find the right one,” promised Dorothy. 
87 


88 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ You see, Mrs. Hogan don’t want me to talk 
about him,” said the child, faintly. “When I 
forgets and does, she says: ‘ Drat the young ’un! 
Ain’t she thankful for havin’ a home ? ’ 

“ But, do you know,” pursued Celia, her voice 
dropping to a whisper again, “ I’se afraid I ain’t 
as thankful as I dough ter be—no, I ain’t.” 

“Not thankful?” 

“No, ma’am! I can’t somehow jes’ feel thank¬ 
ful for Mrs. Ann Hogan.” 

Dorothy could not blame her for this, but she 
did not feel it right to agree with her. “ Oh, my 
dear! I expect Mrs. Hogan is kind to you—in her 
way,” she said. 

“ Yes, I ’spect so,” sighed Celia, nodding slow¬ 
ly. “ But you can’t jes’ get uster some folkses’ ways; 
can you ? It—it was better in the Findling—yes, 
it was, Dorothy. And I hoped if any lady took 
me away it would be a nice, cuddly one.” 

“ A cuddly one? ” repeated Dorothy. “ What 
sort of a lady is that?” 

“Why, you know,” Celia said, with eagerness. 
“The kind that cuddles you, and makes a-much 
over you. Of course, you never was a Findling, 
Dorothy? ” 

“ Oh, no, dear! I haven’t any mother, anymore 
than you have; but I have a dear, dear father and 
two brothers-” 

“Well, you see,” interrupted the eager little 



SNOWBOUND 89 

one, “ some of the ladies what come for the find- 
lings just fall right in love with them. The ma¬ 
tron lady always dresses ’em up real pretty, and 
curls their hair, and makes ’em look as pretty as 
they can look. 

“You see,” she added, in an explanatory way, 
“ I was so nawful thin—'scrawny, the matron said 
—the mother-ladies what corned to find a findling 
didn’t care much for me.” 

Dorothy could understand that it was the pretty, 
plump children who would mostly attract those 
lonely hearts reaching out for the babies that God 
had denied them. 

u You see,” pursued Celia, 44 Mrs. Hogan want¬ 
ed a young one that could work. She told the 
matron so. I was gettin’ so big that they had to 
let somebody have me pretty soon, or I’d have 
to go to the Girls’ School—an’ the matron said 
4 God forbid! ’ so I guess the Girls’ School ain’t 
a very nice place for little girls to go,” and Celia 
shook her head wisely. 

44 But, you see, I hoped an’ hoped that one of 
the cuddly ladies would take me. I seen one carry 
Maisie—she was my little friend—right out of 
the Findling, and down the steps, and into a great, 
big, be-youtiful ortermobile. She hugged her tight 
all the way, too, an’ I think —she cried over her. 
The matron said she’d lost a little girl that looked 
like Maisie. 


90 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ But I didn’t look like nobody that was lost— 
not at all. They all said when they looked at me: 
‘She’s jes’ the cutest little thing! ’ But somehow 
they didn’t love me.” 

“ Oh, my dear! ” cried Dorothy, gathering Celia 
into her arms again. “I don’t see why all the lone¬ 
some mothers that came there to the asylum didn’t 
fall in love with you right away! ” 

There was a great stamping upon the porch and 
the door flew open. Dorothy saw that the whole 
world outside seemed to be one vast snowbank. 
Mrs. Hogan, puffing and blowing, in knee boots 
and her man’s outfit, was covered with snow. 

“ That Jim Bentley’s gone home—bad ’cess t’ 
him. Though ’tis me saves a supper thereby. An’ 
he niver got the hoss up at all, at all! ” she cried, 
wiping her red face on a towel hanging by the sink, 
&nd then shedding her outside garments, boots and 
all, in a heap by the hot stove. 

“ ’Tis an awful night out,” she pursued. “ ’Tis 
lucky ye came here as ye did, Miss. We’re safe 
and sound, the saints be praised! An’ I got the 
ould hoss on his feet, mesilf, an’ no thanks to that 
lazy spalpane, Jim Bentley. The Lord is good to 
the poor Irish.” 

Dorothy decided that the man, Jim Bentley, 
must be a neighbor whom Mrs. Hogan hired to 
do some of her heavy work. But the Amazon 


SNOWBOUND 91 

seemed quite capable of doing a good deal of farm 
work herself. 

Now she set about getting supper, and she kept 
Celia Moran hopping to run her errands, fetch 
and carry, and otherwise aid in the preparation 
the meal. It was no banquet; merely hot bread 
and fried pork, with some preserves, the latter 
evidently opened for the delectation of the “pay¬ 
ing guest.” 

Mrs. Hogan made it plain at every turn that 
she expected to be paid for everything she did for 
Dorothy. She was a veritable female miser. 
Dorothy had never imagined such a person in all 
her life before. 

And, although the woman did not really put 
her hand upon little Celia, she was continually 
threatening her and hustling her about. She 
seemed even to begrudge the poor child her food, 
and the infinitesimal portion of preserve that was 
put upon Celia’s plate was, to Dorothy’s mind, 
“ the last straw.” 

The school girl boldly changed saucers with 
Celia and gave the little one her share of the 
sweetmeat. 

Mrs. Hogan would not let her guest assist in 
clearing up after supper. Celia, in a long apron 
tied around her throat by its strings, and dragging 
on the floor so that her little feet in their worn 
shoes were impeded when she tried to walk, stood 


92 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


upon a box at the kitchen sink and washed the pile 
of dishes, while her mistress dried them—scolding 
and admonishing all the time. 

“ Av all the young imps of Satan! looker that 
now! D’ye not know tis wrong ter wash the greasy 
dishes first? How often must I tell ye? An’ her 
water’s not hot. 

“That’s it! pour in some more. ’Tis too hot 
for ye? ’Twill cool. An’ yer han’s no bether nor 
mine, an’ w’en I was your age I washed dishes for 
a boardin’ house—twinty hear-r-rty men sat doon 
to the table, too. And they made a wash-basket o’ 
dishes iv’ry male, so they did! 

“What’s the mather with yer han’s? Is ut a 
cute lady ye expict ter be? Ha! ye’ll l’arn some 
practical things, then, while yer wid me. Arrah! 
there’s a plate that, ain’t clane. What d’ye mane 
by ut? ’Tis a good lickin’ ye oughter have! ” 

And thus she went onfall during the task. Poor 
Celia was not struck, or really abused, as far as 
Dorothy could see. But she was sensitive, and 
the lashing of Mrs. Hogan’s coarse tongue hurt 
Celia more than physical punishment would have 
hurt some other child. 

When the smoke of battle had passed away, and 
little Celia had washed out and hung up the dish- 
towels to dry on the line behind the stove, Dor¬ 
othy took her on the settee beside her. Mrs. Ho- 


SNOWBOUND 


93 


gan made no objection, nor did she scarcely speak 
to them as the evening advanced. 

Dorothy whispered stories to the round-eyed 
child—Oh! she had had plenty of practise in story¬ 
telling while her brothers, Joe and Roger, were 
little. Celia was too old to care much for “ The 
Little Rid Hin ”, or “ The Frog He Would A- 
Wooing Go”; but Dorothy could repeat “As- 
pinax; or, the Enchanted Dwarf ” almost word for 
word, and the marvellous adventures of that ap¬ 
pealing hero held Celia’s enthralled attention for 
the evening. 

Perhaps Mrs. Hogan had been listening, too; 
for she never said a word about its being bedtime 
until the story was finished. All the time the snow 
had been beating against the house, while the wind 
moaned in the chimney and occasionally rattled a 
loose shutter. 

It was really an awful night out, and Dorothy 
felt that she was being snowbound here in this 
lonely farmhouse. She was only afraid that Tavia 
and the other girls, as well as Mrs. Pangborn, 
would be frightened for her. 

“ I’ll be puttin’ youse in the spare room. ’Tis 
a betther bed than those above stairs,” said Mrs. 
Hogan. “ I suppose ye’ll be willin’ to pay a mite 
extry for th’ accommidation? There’s a stove and 
a fire laid ready to light. Ye kin undress where ’tis 
.war-r-rm, and I’ll heat the sheets for ye. In the 


94 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


marnin’ I’ll sind Celia down airly, an’ she kin light 
the fire for ye, Miss Dale. ’Tis goin’ to be a cold 
night, an’ we may be snowed ter th’ eaves by mar- 
nin . 

“ Oh! I hope not,” replied Dorothy, warmly. 

“ Ye nade have no fear. There’s plenty of fuel 
and atein’, I’d have ye know.” 

“ But are you going to let me sleep down here 
all alone? ” queried Dorothy. 

“Sure, the upstairs rooms are not fit for the 
likes o’ ye,” said the woman, quickly. “ And there’s 
no manes of heatin’ them. In the marnin’ ye’ll 
have a nice, hot fire to git up by. I’ll see that Cely 
lights it-” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Hogan! ” cried Dorothy, “ let Celia 
sleep down here with me. Your bed is big enough 
for two, surely.” 

“ Well, I dunno-” 

“ Then she will be right on hand to light the 
fire in the morning,” suggested Dorothy, who could 
not think calmly of the little girl getting up in the 
cold to come downstairs and light a fire for her . 
“And I’d love to have her sleep with me. She’d 
be company.” 

“Well, if ye wish it,” said the woman, slowly. 
“ But mind ye, Cely! if ye’re not a good gur-rl— 
an’ kick an’ thrash in yer sleep—I’ll certainly 
spank ye. Now, mind that! ” 

The woman got up and went through the hall 




SNOWBOUND 


95 

to open the guest chamber. The room was like 
a refrigerator, and the cold air swept out of it 
into the kitchen and made Dorothy and Celia 
“ hug the stove.” It was a bitter cold night and 
Dorothy secretly longed for her own warm room, 
with Tavia, at Glenwood Hall. 

But Celia was delighted at the permission given 
her. She wriggled out of Dorothy’s arms and ran 
upstairs for her nightie. Mrs. Hogan brought 
forth one of her own sleeping garments for Dor¬ 
othy—voluminous enough, it seemed to the girl, 
to be used as a tent if one wished to go camping 
out. 

The nightgown was of coarse muslin, but as 
white as it could be, and had evidently been folded 
away in lavender for some special occasion. Mrs. 
Hogan did not give one the impression of being 
a lady who paid much attention to the niceties of 
life. 

And there was Celia’s little nightie—a coarse, 
unbleached cotton garment, with not even a frill 
of common lace about the throat. When the child 
got into it and knelt by the kitchen settee to say 
her prayers, Dorothy thought she looked as though 
she was dressed in a little meal-sack! 

Meanwhile Mrs. Hogan had brought down an 
old-fashioned brass “bed warmer” from the wall 
—a long handle, covered pan (the cover being 
perforated) into which she shoveled some glowing 


96 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


coals from the stove fire-box. With this bed- 
warmer she ironed the bed in the guest room. 
These bed-warmers were common enough in the 
pioneer homes of New England and the upper 
New York counties, and Dorothy decided that 
Mrs. Hogan must have found this one in the old 
farmhouse when she had purchased the place. 

“ Come on wid ye, now! ” the woman called 
from the cold bed chamber. “ Oi’ve taken the 
desp’rit cold out o’ the shates, and’ yez kin cuddle 
in here an’ kape war-r-rm. But ye’ll git no sich 
notion in yer head that I’ll be warmin’ yer bid for 
yez on other nights, Cely; for I won’t do utl I 
never have me own bed warmed, and it’s well fer 
youse ter l’arn ter live harsh, too.” 

This was her good-night to them. When the 
two girls had scrambled into bed, all of a shiver 
from crossing the cold hall and the big chamber, 
Mrs. Hogan banged the door, and the next mo¬ 
ment they heard her fixing the kitchen fire for the 
night. 

Dorothy had gathered the little, starved body 
of Celia in her arms. The little one sighed, sobbed, 
and then lay still. Before Dorothy had realized 
it, Celia was fast asleep—so wearied was the little 
one. 

But the older girl lay, broad awake, for some 
minutes. Her breath puffed out in plainly visible 
mist, the air of the room was so cold. The freez- 


SNOWBOUND 


97 


ing water in the pitcher on the washstand snapped 
land crackled. A shade had been raised to the top 
of the sash, and that ghostly light always present 
when it is snowing at night, faintly illuminated the 
bare room. 

“Swish! swish! swish! ” the snow beat upon the 
clapboards outside. She saw that the lower sash 
Was completely covered by the snow. The drifts 
were piling up on this side of the house, and Dor¬ 
othy finally dropped to sleep, hugging her little 
charge, with the feeling that she was being buried 
alive beneath the soft, white mantle. 


CHAPTER XII 


TAVIA IS MYSTIFIED 

Tavia, among other things, had a long Latin 
verse to translate. This was one of the “ extras,” 
or “conditions” heaped upon the already bur¬ 
dened shoulders of the irrepressible. 

“ But if Olaine wasn’t such a mean, mean thing 
she wouldn’t have given me all those black marks 
—so’t I couldn’t go with Dorothy on her walk,” 
Tavia said to some of the other girls who looked 
in on her that Saturday afternoon. 

From which it may clearly be drawn that Tavia 
was one of those persons who desire “ to eat their 
cake and have it, too! ” She had had her fun, in 
breaking the school rules; but she did not like 
to pay for the privilege. 

“ I wouldn’t mind if it was mathematics,” wailed 
Tavia, when Ned Ebony and Cologne came in to 
condole with her. “But this beastly old Lat- 

“ Oh, dear me! that reminds me,” said the slow- 
going Cologne. “ I hate mathematics. There 
98 


TAVIA IS MYSTIFIED 


99 


used to be a problem in the arithmetic about how 
much water goes over Niagara Falls in a given 
time-” 

“ Pooh! ” interrupted Tavia, “ I can tell you oil- 
hand how much water goes over Niagara Falls to 
a quart.” 

“Oh, Tavia! you can’t,” gasped Cologne, her 
eyes big with awe. 

“ That’s easy. Two pints,” chuckled Tavia, and 
Cologne was for some time studying out the an¬ 
swer! 

“ If you’d only learned to be ambidextrous in 
your youth, Tavia,” said Edna Black, smiling. 
“ Then you could write out that Latin with one 
hand and do sums with the other—and so get over 
your old * conditions ’ quicker and come and have 
some fun.” 

“ Ha! that’s what Mrs. Pangborn said yester¬ 
day,” interposed Cologne, coming out of her 
brown study. “She said that with just a little 
practise we should find it just as easy to do any¬ 
thing with one hand as with the other.” 

Tavia looked up from her paper again, and gig¬ 
gled. “ Wish I’d heard her,” she said. 

“Why?” 

“ I’d asked her how she supposed a boy would 
fever learn to put his left hand in the right hand 
pocket of his trousers. Wouldn’t that have 
stumped even Mrs. Pangborn? ” 


100 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“And it might have won you another black 
mark. That fatal sense of humor of yours will 
get you into deep water yet,” said Cologne, wag¬ 
ging her head. 

“ Oh, go on out and play—both of you! ” cried 
Tavia. “ I couldn’t go with Dorothy, and I’ll 
never get this done if you don’t leave me alone. 
Miss Olaine said I must do it before supper time.” 

“ You’d better hurry, then,” declared Ned. 

“ That’s right,” said Rose-Mary. “ It’s getting 
dark now—and oh! it’s beginning to snow.” 

It was snowing hard when Tavia went down to 
the office to deliver her papers into the strict Miss 
Olaine’s hands. The mail bag had just come 
in and the teacher was distributing the letters and 
cards into the pigeon-holes which served the school 
for letter boxes. Each member of the senior class 
had her own little box. 

Tavia knew better than to interrupt Miss Olaine 
at her present task. The whole school had learned 
by now that the new assistant was not to be trifled 
with. Miss Olaine was as severe as though she 
were a prison warden instead of a school teacher. 

Idly Tavia watched the distribution of the mail. 
She saw a fat letter put into her own pigeon-hole 
and knew it was from her brother Johnny. Dor¬ 
othy’s box was right next to it. Already there 
were several letters lying in it, for her correspon¬ 
dence was large. 


TAVIA IS MYSTIFIED 


IOI 


Then Tavia saw Miss Olaine hesitate with a 
postal card in her hand. The teacher had evi¬ 
dently picked it up with the message side upper¬ 
most. Something on the card caught Miss Olaine’s 
eye. 

She gasped. Then the teacher turned white and 
staggered to a chair. The girl almost sprang for¬ 
ward to assist her; but Miss Olaine recovered her 
usual stern manner. 

She read the card through, however—there was 
no doubt of that. Then she turned it over slowly 
and read the address. 

Tavia waited. 

Miss Olaine slowly recovered from her emotion 
—either fear or amazement, Tavia did not know 
which. She had evidently forgotten the girl’s 
presence. 

She stood up again. The other letters had 
fallen, and were scattered on the desk. Miss 
Olaine held the postal card as though she contem¬ 
plated tearing it in pieces. 

But evidently the remembrance that Uncle Sam’s 
mail laws cannot be violated with impunity, held 
the teacher’s hand. Slowly she raised the card 
and placed it—in Dorothy Dale’s letter box! 

“ Now, whatever under the sun can that mean? ” 
whispered Tavia to herself. “ For Dorothy! And 
she was going to tear it up-” 

“Well, Miss! what do you want?” snapped 



102 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


Miss Olaine, suddenly. She seemed quite to have 
recovered from her emotion, whatever it had been. 
She spoke more tartly than usual, and glared at 
Tavia as though the girl had no business there. 

“ I brought down my exercise as you told me, 
Miss Olaine, ” said Tavia, who was not at all awed 
by the teacher’s grimness. 

“ Leave it,” was the short command. 

“ Can—can I have our mail? ” 

“ You will get your mail at supper time—with 
the rest of the girls,” replied Miss Olaine. 

“ But I only thought—as long as I was 
here-” 

“ There are rules to be abided by, Miss Oc- 
tavia,” said the teacher, sternly. “ If you would 
try to remember that, you would get along better 
at this school,” and she showed that she expected 
Tavia to leave the office at once. 

u My goodness! ” exclaimed Tavia, under her 
breath, as she departed, “isn’t she the old cat? 
And she almost tore up Dorothy’s card! I won¬ 
der what it meant? Humph! just the same if that 
card doesn’t show up in Dorothy’s mail to-night, I 
shall tell her, and we’ll just get after old Olaine. 
I’d like to drive her out of the school, anyway.” 

Tavia, however, forgot about Miss Olaine’s 
sternness—even forgot about the mystery of the 
postal card—when the supper bell rang and Dor¬ 
othy had not returned. By that time the snow 


TAVIA IS MYSTIFIED 


103 

was sifting down steadily, gathering in depth each 
minute, and the wind had begun to sigh in the 
pines “ like long lost spirits,” as Ned Ebony said. 

u Oh, dear, me! where can she have gone?” 
cried Tavia. 

Soon it would be pitch dark—or, as dark as it 
could be with the snow falling. It looked as though 
a white curtain had been drawn right down out¬ 
side each window that Tavia looked out of. She 
'hurried downstairs, forgetting all about mail which 
was now u open ”, and asked to see Mrs. Pang- 
born. 

The principal was at tea, and when Tavia burst 
in upon her she, being used to the girl’s exuber¬ 
ance of temperament, went right on eating thin 
strips of buttered toast and sipping tea. 

“ And if it is snowing hard, my dear, don’t you 
think that our sensible Dorothy will realize it— 
quite as soon as we do ? ” queried Mrs. Pangborn. 

“ But, suppose there was no house near when it 
began to snow? ” 

“Dorothy was going out the Old Mill road; 
wasn’t she? So you said.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“And there isn’t a house on that road that is 
out of sight of at least two other houses,” laughed 
the principal of Glenwood. “Oh, my dear! Dor¬ 
othy has undoubtedly been caught in the storm— 


104 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

and has been wise ^enough to take shelter until 
morning. Don’t worry, my dear.” 

Mrs. Pangborn was so cool about it that Tavia 
was bound to have her anxiety quenched. Only— 
she did feel as though something was not alto¬ 
gether right with her absent friend. But Tavia 
went away to supper, feeling somehow relieved. 

The girls of Glenwood Hall usually had a good 
time at this hour. As long as they did not become 
too hilarious, the teachers had been in the habit 
of overlooking a certain amount of boisterousness 
and display of high spirits. 

That is, so it had been up to this term. But 
since Miss Olaine had been in the school a general 
drawing of the lines over all the girls had gone on 
until more than Tavia and her immediate friends 
complained of the strictness of the school disci¬ 
pline. 

This evening Miss Olaine sat like a thunder¬ 
cloud at the head of the seniors’ table. Every 
time a girl laughed aloud the stern teacher turned 
her baleful glance that way. 

“Something’s up! ” whispered Edna to Tavia. 
“ Never has Miss Olaine looked as grim as to¬ 
night. What have yoz/been doing to her, Tavia? ” 

“Not a thing!” declared the girl addressed. 
But the remark set Tavia to thinking of the in¬ 
cident of the postal card. She hurried through 
her supper, was excused early, and went directly 


TAVIA IS MYSTIFIED 


io a 

to the office for her own mail—and for Dorothy’s. 

“ If that card isn’t there-” 

This was Tavia’s unfinished thought. She ob¬ 
tained Johnny’s letter and Dorothy’s packet of mis¬ 
sives, and ran upstairs to the room. There she 
spread all of her chum’s letters out under the read¬ 
ing lamp. 

There was more than one card; but Tavia knew 
the one Miss Olaine ha'd read, very well. The other 
cards were souvenir cards; this was a regular cor¬ 
respondence card, addressed to “ Miss Dorothy 
Dale, Glenwood School.” There was no mistak¬ 
ing it. 

“Well, it’s here,” Tavia murmured, with a sigh 
of relief. “ She didn’t make way with it. I won¬ 
der-” 

She turned the card over. It was the most nat¬ 
ural thing in the world to read the brief, type¬ 
written message there: 

“Tom Moran disappeared after the Rector 
St. School fire, two years ago. His Union 
Card has lapsed. We know nothing about 
his whereabouts—if he is alive. 

“ I. K. Tierney, Sec’y” 

“Why—isn’t that funny?” gasped Tavia. 
“Whoever heard the like? Yes! it’s really got 
Dorothy’s name on it. Sounds just as though she 




io6 DOROTHY DALE'S PROMISE 

had asked this man, Tierney, about this other per¬ 
son, Tom Moran! 

“ I never heard of either of them. What inter¬ 
est can Dorothy have in them ? But—hold on! ” 
exclaimed Tavia, suddenly startled by a new 
thought. “ What interest has Miss Olaine in the 
men —or in Dorothy’s inquiry, whichever it may 
be?” 


CHAPTER XIII 


TUNNELING OUT 

What awoke Dorothy she could not tell. For 
the first few moment she lay still, realizing that 
there was a deadly chill in the air outside of the 
heavy mass of bedclothing that weighed her body 
down. The frosty air did not seem at all like the 
air of the room she occupied with Tavia at Glen- 
wood Hall. 

Then — with something of a shock — she re¬ 
membered that she was not with Tavia, or at Glen- 
wood Hall! 

She felt the pressure of the warm little body of 
Celia, curled up like a kitten in a ball, beside her 
in the bed of the best room at Mrs. Hogan’s house. 
There was light enough in the room for her to see 
the grim, bare nature of the place—its ugly furni¬ 
ture and the plain rag carpet on the floor. 

She looked at the uncurtained window and to 
:her amazement saw that, from bottom to top, it 
was masked with snow. It looked as though the 
drift was higher than the very top of the window! 

107 


io8 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


Was it still snowing, or had the storm ceased? 
Not a sound came from without; nor could she de¬ 
tect a sound within the house. 

There was no clock in the room and Dorothy’s 
own watch was in the kitchen where she had left 
her clothing. She stirred about to gain an easier 
position, and the little body of Celia Moran un¬ 
curled. 

“Oh! oh! Tom—Dorothy-” 

The murmur of the child’s voice served to 
wake Dorothy properly. Celia was dreaming—of 
Dorothy herself, and of her lost brother. The 
older girl kissed her, laid her touseled head upon 
the pillow, and then crept out of the warm feath¬ 
ers into the cold, cold room. 

There was a matchbox on the mantel behind 
the small sheet-iron stove. With chattering teeth 
the Glenwood girl reached the matches, stooped 
by the door of the stove, scratched the lucifer, and 
ignited the shavings and corncobs which made suffi¬ 
cient kindling in the firebox to set off the hard¬ 
wood sticks piled in above the tinder. 

The fire began to roar almost instantly. She 
darted back across the icy floor and crept again 
into bed. Whether it was morning, or not, Doro¬ 
thy determined to have a fire and somehow kill 
the deadly chill of that guest room. 

Celia still slept. The yellow light of the fire 
began to send dancing reflections upon the ceil- 



TUNNELING OUT 


109 


ing through the perforated draft of the stove. 
Dorothy lay there and listened to the fire’s roar; 
but there was no other sound in the house for some 
time. 

The atmosphere of the room perceptibly 
changed. There was a little blue haze in the air 
‘and die smell of burning varnish, for the careful 
Mrs. Hogan had painted the stove to keep it from 
rusting and perhaps this was the first time it had 
been used during the winter. 

By and by Dorothy heard the creak of the stair 
under the heavy tread of the farm woman. It 
must, the schoolgirl judged, be time to rise; yet 
the snow drift kept out the morning light. 

She heard Mrs. Hogan at the kitchen stove, 
raking down the ashes and rattling the dampers. 
By and by she came through the hall and opened 
the door. 

“Ha!” she said. “Ye have a boomin’ fire— 
an’ all goin’ up the chimney, av coorse. Fuel is 
nothin’ to the rich. Git up out o’ that, Cely 
Moran! D’ye wanter lie abed all day? ’Tis long 
past sivin o’clock, and we’re snowed in to the 
sicond story—an’ still ’tis snowin’. Git up, I 
say!” 

Meanwhile she had partly closed the back draft 
and the fire roared less angrily. Celia stirred 
sleepily. 

“Good morning!” Dorothy said to Mrs. 


no DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


Hogan. “ I am going to get up, too. Will you 
put my clothes in here? It is getting nice and 
warm now.” 

“ I’ll sind thim in by Cely. Git out o’ that bed, 
now—plague o’ me life! Scatter out inter the kit¬ 
chen,” and she drove the little one before her as 
one would shoo a chicken. 

“ It really isn’t snowing now; is it? ” cried Doro¬ 
thy, before Mrs. Hogan could shut the door. 

“ Indade it is—snowin’ hard. I kin see it from 
me winder upstairs. But the house is drifted 
around, till there’s a bank before me kitchen door 
higher than the lintel. And me’ kitchen pump’s 
froze. Lucky there’s water in the tea kettle and 
I’ll soon have it thawed. Ye’ll find water—or ice 
—in that pitcher yonder, Miss.” 

The woman retreated. Celia, as soon as she 
had got into her own clothes, brought in Dorothy’s 
garments and hung them carefully on chairs about 
the stove to warm before the bigger girl put them 
on. 

“You’re a dear little maid!” cried Dorothy. 

“ Thank you.” 

“ I wish I could go to that school and work for 
you,” said Celia, wistfully. “ Don’t you suppose I 
could? ” 

I am afraid not, Celia,” returned Dorothy, 
yet wishing, too, that it were possible. “ You try 


TUNNELING OUT 


in 


your best to please Mrs. Hogan. And meantime 
I’ll find your brother as quick as I can.” 

Had Dorothy known what was written on that 
postal card from the secretary of the ironwork¬ 
ers’ union, which message had so puzzled her 
friend Tavia, she could not have spoken with the 
assurance she did. 

Dorothy dressed hurriedly and managed to get 
enough of the ice in the pitcher melted, meanwhile, 
on the stove hearth, to enable her to make her 
toilet. The sting of the icy water upon her eyes 
and temples served to wake her up and started her 
pulse at a quicker beat. She ran out into the smoky 
kitchen, to see Celia setting the table while Mrs. 
Hogan fried the usual pork and johnny cakes. 

“ Oh, that does smell so good! ” cried the girl 
from Glenwood School. 

Mrs. Hogan smiled—and her smile was rare 
indeed!—when she heard this. She considered 
that she could safely tack on an additional quarter 
for breakfast in the final bill she meant to present 
for Dorothy’s entertainment. 

“ Oh, see here! ” exclaimed Celia, and ran to 
open the door. A white wall of packed snow 
faced them. 

“ Oh, dear me! we are really snowed in,” said 
Dorothy. “However will we manage to dig a 
way out? ” 

“ Come away from that, now, ye little plague,” 


ii2 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

spoke Mrs. Hogan to Celia. “Arrah, now! see 
what ye’ve done. Looker that mess of snow on 
the floor.” 

A hodful, at least, had become detached and 
fallen inward. Dorothy ran for the brush and 
dustpan which hung against the bricks behind the 
stove. 

“ I’ll clean it up, Mrs. Hogan,” she said. “ You 
go about your work, Celia.” 

“ We’ll have to dig a tunnel through to the shed 
door after breakfast,” declared Mrs. Hogan. 
“We’ve got to get through the shed to the barn, 
an’ then into the hen house. Surely, we can’t l’ave 
the critters ter starve. And there’s no knowing 
when this storm will stop. Ye’ll not git to school 
this day, I’m thinkin’, me young lady.” 

“ I am only glad that I am not out there in the 
lane under all this snow,’’replied Dorothy, gravely. 

After breakfast she went upstairs with Celia 
to peer out at the storm. It was, indeed, a bliz¬ 
zard. Scarcely a landmark was visible through 
the falling snow. The fences were, of course, long 
since drifted over; and the snow had been blown 
into the farmyard in a great mound, piled against 
the side of the house to the sill of the second floor 
windows, and completely covering the roofs of 
the lower buildings. 

Mrs. Hogan put a huge boiler on the stove 
when they came down. She had not thawed her 


TUNNELING OUT 


”3 

pump as yet; but she opened the barricaded door 
and into this boiler shoveled snow, from time to 
time, until she had melted sufficient to well fill 
the receptacle, and had dug quite a cavern in the 
snowbank. 

Then, dressed in her half-mannish costume, the 
Amazon set to work with a steel shovel to really 
excavate a tunnel through the drift to the wood¬ 
shed door. Dorothy and Celia helped by “ trim¬ 
ming” the sides and roof of the tunnel, and tramp¬ 
ling down the excavated snow under foot. 

The passage to the woodshed door was short. 
Beyond the shed the snow filled all the space to the 
stables, and was heaped fifteen feet high. They 
cut out the snow in blocks and heaped it to one 
side within the shed. In two hours Mrs. Hogan, 
working as though tireless, opened the way to 
the stables and they could feed the stock. For¬ 
tunately there was a trap between the barn and the 
hennery through which they could throw corn and 
oats to the flock. 

Tunneling through the snowbank Celia thought 
to be lots of fun; and Dorothy found it amusing. 
Mrs. Hogan’s grim face and grimmer remarks, 
however, proved that she considered the situation 
quite serious. 

“ You young’uns kape yer feet dry. Have no 
chills, nor colds, nor other didoes, now; for ’tis 
no knowin* how long ’twould take a dochter to 


H4 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

git here through these drifts—an* however would 
we git word to such, anyhow, I dunno ? ” 

Dorothy and Celia wrapped shawls around their 
shoulders again and went to the upper windows 
to look out. Although the flakes were bigger now, 
and the snow was not gathering so fast, they 
could not see far along the lane; and not a moving 
object appeared upon the surface of the drifts. 

“Oh, I’m glad you are here, Dorothy Dale,” 
whispered Celia. “ It would jes’ be dreadful to be 
smothered in with snow like this, with only Mrs. 
Ann Hogan—yes, it would! ” 


CHAPTER XIV 


SEVERAL SURPRISING THINGS 

“ Now you’ve got to just tell me all about what 
it means! ” declared Tavia, the moment the door 
had closed on the other girls and she and Dorothy 
were alone in their old room at Glenwood Hall. 
“ Don’t you see that I’m just eaten up with curi¬ 
osity? ” 

“ Why, you don’t seem to have lost any flesh at 
all,” laughed Dorothy, pinching one of her friend’s 
cheeks while she kissed the other. 

“ Stop tantalizing! What does that card mean? 
Who is Tom Moran? How dare you have a gentle¬ 
man friend, Dorothy Dale, with whom I am not 
acquainted? ” 

“ What nonsense,” said Dorothy. “ Tom Mor¬ 
gan is—why, just Tom Moran.” 

“ Lucid as mud! And what, or who, is he to 
Olaine?” 

“ You puzzle me a whole lot more than you are 
puzzled yourself,” complained Dorothy. “ I don’t 
115 


ii6 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

understand—not the least little bit—what you tell 
me about Miss 01aine. ,, 

“ She was just as scared as she could be when 
she read this message to you, Doro,” and Tavia 
thrust the typewritten postal card under her 
friend’s eyes. “ Read it and tell me what it 
means.” 

“ Oh, I can do that” 

“Well, do it! ” cried Tavia. “Don’t hesitate 
so.” 

“ First I must tell you about Celia Moran-” 

“ Another stranger! ” gasped Tavia. 

“Just the dearest, funniest, most pitiful little 
girl-” 

“ I’m glad it’s a girl this time,” sniffed Tavia. 

“ Of course—Celia! ” 

“Well! go on?” urged Tavia. 

So her friend began at the beginning—with 
her first meeting with the child from the foundling 
asylum in the Belding Station. And she related 
the particulars, too, of her recent adventure in the 
snow and her two nights and the Sunday spent at 
the Hogan farmhouse. 

“ That Hogan woman is a regular ogress. I 
wish I could take Celia away from there this 
very day,” sighed Dorothy. “ Did you see her 
when she drove me in here? ” 

“The giantess? Of course! She looked so fun- 



SEVERAL SURPRISING THINGS 117 

ny in that gray and purple sweater and the green 
hood-” 

“ No matter for laughing. Do you know what 
she made Mrs. Pangborn pay her for ‘me keep’, 
as she called it?” 

“ No.” 

“ Twenty dollars—think of it? She’s a terrible 
miser—and that poor little thing isn’t half fed.” 

“The poor kid! ” agreed Tavia, whose warm 
heart was touched by the story Dorothy told her. 

“ She wanted to come with us so badly,” sighed 
Dorothy. “ But Mrs. Hogan made her stay and 
keep up the fire, and watch to see if the hens laid 
any eggs. They bring ’em right in from the nests 
for fear they will freeze,” explained Dorothy. 

“ I really believe, Tavia, if that little thing 
hadn’t been out gathering eggs Saturday evening, 
I would have laid down in the snow and died! ” 

“Oh, Doro! How dreadful!” 

“I was ‘all in’, as Ned and Nat would say. 
Just at the last gasp when Celia heard me crying 
for help.” 

“I’d like to hug her for that,” cried Tavia, 
her eyes shining. 

“ And so, I must find her brother if I can,” con¬ 
tinued Dorothy, not very lucidly, it must be con¬ 
fessed. But Tavia had gained a general idea of 
the matter now and she said: 

“That’s Tom Moran?” 



DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


118 

“Yes. That’s her brother. * He builds bridges, 
and things.’ That is what Celia says. She re¬ 
members a lot for such a little thing. So I wrote 
to the local union in the city and asked if they 
knew him. And this,” said Dorothy, pursing her 
lips and shaking her head, “ is their answer. It’s— 
it’s not very hopeful-” 

“ But for goodness sake tell me what Miss 
Olaine has to do with it?” demanded Tavia. 

“ Now, dear, you know very well I can’t tell 
you that,” admitted Dorothy, thoughtfully. 

“ She was just as startled-” 

“ Do you suppose it was Tom Moran’s name 
that startled her, or the signature of the secre¬ 
tary of the union? Or—or-?” 

“ Or, what else? What else is there in the note 
to scare her? ” demanded Tavia. 

“The school fire. Do you remember? It was 
an awful fire. Some of the children failed to get 
out in the fire drill. They were shut into a 
room on an upper floor, it seems to me—with a 
teacher-? ” 

“ I can’t remember about it,” quoth Tavia, dis¬ 
appointed. “ I remember the papers were full of 
it at the time. But what had this Tom Moran 
to do with it—with the fire, I mean?” 

“ I—I can’t think. I don’t remember his name, 
or any other detail of the fire,” agreed Dorothy. 

“Let’s ask Miss Olaine.” 






SEVERAL SURPRISING THINGS 119 

u I wouldn’t darre! You wouldn’t dare your¬ 
self, Tavia? ” 

“ No—o. I guess I wouldn’t. She—she’s so dif¬ 
ferent from the other teachers. I feel just as 
though she’d slap me! ” 

“Wait a minute!” exclaimed Dorothy, think¬ 
ing hard. “ Something Mrs. Pangborn said to 
me—I remember. 

“What about? What’s Mrs. Pangborn got 
to do with the mystery? ” 

“ She hinted that there had been something 
in Miss Olaine’s life that excused her harshness— 
something that if we girls knew it would make 
us forgive her irritability.” 

“ What is it? ” asked the curious Tavia. 

“ I don’t know. I haven’t the least idea. Mrs. 
Pangborn intimated that she had no right to tell 
us.” 

“ Why, I think that’s puzzling,” admitted Tavia. 
“ But I can’t work up much sympathy for Olaine 
on that showing. I want details.” 

“And I want details of Tom Moran’s mix-up 
with the Rector Street School fire. Oh, Tavia P* 

“What is it?” demanded her friends, quite 
startled by the way Dorothy had clutched at her. 

“ I know how we can find out.” 

“ About Miss Olaine ? ” 

“ About Tom Moran and the fire. There are the 
files of the city papers. Father used to always 


120 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


keep files of The Bugle when he ran it in Dalton. 
Let’s go to town the very next chance we get and 
go to the office of the Courier . We can read all 
about the fire of two years ago.” 

“ Of course it would take you, Dorothy Dale, to 
think of that,” said Tavia, admiringly. 

“ Will you do it?” 

“ Of course. We’ll go Saturday. ” 

“ But you will have to be careful and get no 
‘conditions’ this week,” warned Dorothy. 

“ Oh! I’ll be as good as gold—you see,” prom¬ 
ised Tavia. 

And, really, it did seem as though even Miss 
Olaine could find nothing for which to find fault 
in Tavia’s conduct that week. The irrepressible 
tried very hard indeed to attend to nothing but 
her studies—and her meals! 

She was almost perfect, even, in her French, and 
Tavia was not partial to French. “Goodness 
knows, I’ll never get to Paris, and what use is there 
in learning French in these United States, just so’s 
to be able to read the menus at the fashionable 
hotels? ” complained Tavia. 

“ But, it is considered quite the thing,” suggest¬ 
ed Ned Ebony. 

“ Oh, sure I everybody who’s made a little money 
in oil, or coal, or pork, or wheat, has to have a 
French teacher. Say, Doro! do you remember 


SEVERAL SURPRISING THINGS 121 


Mrs. Painter, in Dalton? The lady whose hus¬ 
band had an awful lot of money left him? ” 

“ Oh, I remember!” laughed Dorothy. “Poor 
woman! She wanted to be so refined and educated 
all of a sudden.” 

“That’s the lady,” said Tavia. 

“What about her?” demanded Cologne. 

“ She tried to learn French. At any rate, she 
learned a few phrases, and she used to work them 
into conversation in such a funny way,” Tavia 
explained, giggling over the thought of the poor 
lady. 

“ She went into the butcher shop one day and 
asked Sam Smike, the butcher, if he had any ‘ bon- 
vivant’.” 

“ * Bon-vivant ’ ? gasped Cologne. “ What— 
what-” 

“That’s what Sam wanted to know,” giggled 
Tavia. “ He says to her: ‘ Boned what, ma’am?’ 

“And Mrs. Painter said, perfectly serious: 
‘Why, bon-vivant, you know. That’s the French 
for good liver.’ ” 

“ Why, Tavia! how ridiculous! ” exclaimed Ned 
Ebony. “ It couldn’t be-” 

“ It’s true, just the same. At any rate, Sam 
Smike told it to me himself.” 

However, even French did not floor Tavia that 
week. On Saturday Mrs. Pangborn made no ob- 




122 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


jection to the two friends going to the city by 
train—presumably to do a little shopping. 

And they did shop. They had three full hours 
in town, and they could afford the time. Then they 
went to the Courier office, and Dorothy sent in her 
father’s card and her own to one of the editors, 
and he kindly came out and allowed them to visit 
“ the morgue,” as he called the biographical room, 
where a young man in spectacles and with a streak 
of dust on the side of his nose, lifted down heavy, 
bound volumes of the Courier and showed them 
how to find the articles for which they were in 
search. 

The Rector Street School fire had been a local 
disaster of some moment. The first hastily writ¬ 
ten account, on the day of the fire, did not contain 
that which interested Dorothy and Tavia. But 
in the second day’s edition they found what they 
had never expected to learn—about both Celia 
Moran’s brother and Miss Olaine. 


CHAPTER XV 


WHY DID HE DISAPPEAR? 

“ Misses Dale and Travers, late for supper,” 
said the sharp voice of Miss Olaine. “Your ex¬ 
cuses, please?” 

This was the chums’ welcome as they entered 
the big entrance hall of Glenwood School after 
dark. 

“ Oh, Miss Olaine! the train was late, and we 
stopped on the way to-” 

“ That will do, Miss Travers,” said the teacher. 
“ Other girls who came on that train were here 
ten minutes ago.” 

“But they ran their legs off,” sniffed Tavia, 
when the teacher broke in with: 

“And you took your time, of course, Octavia. 
Ten lines extra—Latin—Tuesday morning. I will 
point out which lines Monday. That is all.” 

Tavia flared up and was evidently about to make 
the matter worse. But Dorothy pinched her, and 
pinched 'hard. 

“ You remember what we agreed coming over 
123 



124 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

f 

from the train,” she warned. “Swallow it like a 
man! ” 

“Oh—oh!” gasped Tavia. “She does make 
me so mad, Doro.” 

“You wouldn’t have got the condition if you 
had kept still. That tongue of yours, Tavia, is like 
what Mrs. Hogan accused Celia of having: It’s 
'hung in the middle and wags at both ends.” 

“Well! it’s not fair!” grumbled her school 
chum. 

“Of course not; but we agreed, fair or not, 
to bear with Mjss Olaine—and to urge the other 
girls to bear with her. When she sits and wrings 
her hands and bites her lips so, we know what 
she is thinking of; don’t we? ” 

“ Oh, yes! ” admitted Tavia, with a shudder. “ I 
know she is to be pitied. But it is dreadful hard 
to be picked upon the way she picks upon me-” 

“ Now, you know that’s nonsense,” replied Dor¬ 
othy, sensibly. “If you would not answer back 
and give her an excuse for punishing you, you’d 
not be in trouble. She gave me no condition.” 

“ Oh, that’s your luck, that’s all,” sighed Tavia. 

“You know that’s not so,” replied Dorothy, 
mildly. “ Do be careful, Tavia. And let us tell 
the other girls and get them to try to be kind to 
Miss Olaine. I am very sorry for her.” 

“ Well—I s’pose—of course I am, too! ” ex- 



WHY DID HE DISAPPEAR? 125 

claimed the really warm-hearted Tavia. 44 But 
she does get my 4 mad up’ so easy! ” 

“You get mad without much provocation, it 
seems to me. Now, after church service to-mor¬ 
row, let’s get the girls all in our room—our crowd, 
I mean—and tell them about the Rector Street 
School fire.” 

“ All right. The poor thing-” 

“ Miss Olaine?” 

“Of course,” said Tavia. 44 The poor thing 
must be always remembering about the little kid¬ 
dies, and how she came near to forgetting 
them-” 

44 And if it hadn’t been for the man on the steel 
beam outside-” 

44 Of course, that was your Tom Moran,” said 
Tavia. 

“Celia’s Tom Moran,” corrected Dorothy. 

But, never mind th, further discussion of the 
matter between the two friends. The following 
is what Dorothy had copied out of the file of the 
Courier , and she read it to the other girls the 
next day, as proposed: 

44 The burning of that fire-trap, the Rector 
Street School, long since condemned by everybody 
but the Board of Education, could scarcely have 
‘been regrettable had it not been for the several 
terrifying incidents connected with it. Some of the 





126 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


hairbreadth escapes were related in yesterday’s 
Courier ; but the details of that incident which was 
most perilous—the salvation of the seven little 
girls and the teacher left to perish on the upper 
floor of the schoolhouse—were not known when 
we went to press last evening. 

“Although our fire department boys did their 
duty at every point, the spectacular rescue of these 
seven children and the teacher was accomplished 
by men at work upon the steel structure of the new 
Adrian Building, which was going up directly be¬ 
side the burned schoolhouse. 

“ At the height of the fire the teacher and her 
charges were discovered at the window of a small 
room on the top floor, by a workman on a steel 
girder that was being raised by the steam winch to 
its place in the structure. The girder was twenty 
feet long and the man—by the name of Moran— 
was riding the beam when the fire broke out. 

“ He called to some helpers, and signalled the 
engineer below how he wished the girder handled. 
With a cable they swung the end of the heavy piece 
of steel so that its end rested on the sill of the 
window of the room where the teacher and her 
charges were trapped. The other end of the gir¬ 
der rested in the framework of the new building. 

u Then the teacher, Rebecca Olaine, of 127 
Morrell Street, this city, opened the lower sash and 
got out on the broad window sill. She was able to 


WHY DID HE DISAPPEAR? 


12; 


lift and pass to Moran each of the children, and 
he ran back along the narrow bridge and handed 
them to other men waiting beyond. 

“ Miss Olaine seemed to lose her strength when 
the last child was saved, and she could not walk 
the girder with the workman’s help. Fire had 
burst into the room then, and the smoke was so 
thick that just what occurred at the window could 
not well be seen from the ground. 

“ But in trying to drag the teacher forth, Mor¬ 
an seemed to lose his footing, and fell back into 
the room. Two other workmen seized the teacher 
and carried her, insensible, to safety. 

“ By that time members of Hose Company 
Number 7 reached the steel bridge and took upon 
themselves the rescue of the workman. He was 
pulled out of the fire somewhat scorched; but in¬ 
quiry at the hospital this afternoon failed to dis¬ 
cover his whereabouts. He had had his burns 
dressed, and had left the hospital early in the day. 

“ Our reporter could learn nothing at 127 Mor¬ 
rell Street regarding the condition of Miss Olaine, 
save that the doctor had forbidden her seeing 
anybody at present. None of the children saved 
with her was even scorched.” 

“Well!” gasped Nita Brent. “Whatever do 
you think about that? Is it sure-to-goodness our 
Olaine?” 


128 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“Our own dear, timid, sweet Miss Olaine,* 
drawled Tavia who—although she agreed with 
Dorothy that the terrible adventure through which 
Miss Olaine had passed, should be considered as 
a reason for the teacher’s unfortunate manner and 
disposition—could not so freely forgive her as did 
Dorothy. 

“The poor thing! ” murmured Cologne. 

“ I don’t know! ” blurted out Ned Ebony, shak¬ 
ing her head. “ What’s it all for, Doro ? ” 

“ I think we ought to pity her and—and take 
her scoldings with a wee bit of patience,” said 
Dorothy, quietly. “ She must have been greatly 
shaken up by the fire-” 

“So she wants to shake ns down,” observed 
Tavia, “to pay up for it.” 

“ It made her nervous and irritable,” said Dor¬ 
othy, with a look at her chum. “ She is more to 
be pitied-” 

“Than censured,” groaned the irrepressible 
Tavia. “All right, Doro! I’ll agree to play no 
more tricks on her.” 

“You’d better decide on that,” grumbled Ned. 
“ Otherwise you will not graduate from old Glen- 
wood with flying colors.” 

“Let’s all ‘be easy’ on Miss Olaine,” said Dor¬ 
othy, calmly. “ I understand that Miss Olaine was 
not fit to teach for a year after the fire, and that 
the reason she came to Glenwood is because it 




WHY DID HE DISAPPEAR? 


129 


made her nervous to teach in a big, crowded city 
school again. I got that much out of Miss Pang- 
born this morning after prayers. 

“ Of course, if Doro says we must treat her 
nicely, we must,” said Nita. “ But she—she’s just 
an old bear! ” 

“ Who dare’s call my Doro a bear? ” demanded 
Tavia. “ There will at once be trouble bruin” 

“Now, you know very well I meant Olaine,” 
complained Nita. 

“She’s just horrid,” added Molly Richards. 
“ She’s given me conditions—just for nothing — 
too!” 

“ Don’t weep about it, Dicky,” advised Tavia. 
“ I claim to have the greatest record for receiving 
extras without cause since the beginning of Miss 
Olaine’s reign.” 

“ Anyhow,” said Cologne, “ if Dorothy says we 
ought to excuse her, and try and treat her 
nicely-” 

“Don’t put it that way,” urged Dorothy. 
“ Don’t you all think she is to be excused? ” 

“Well, wasn’t anybody else ever in a fire?” 
began Ned Ebony, hotly. 

“Think of Shagbark, Myshirt, and Abedwe- 
go! ” exclaimed Tavia. “ Weren’t they the three 
worthies who went into the fiery furnace?” 

“ But I hope they didn’t teach school afterward, 



130 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


if it made ’em as cross as Miss Olaine,” sighed 
Cologne, as she arranged her hair before the 
glass. 

It was agreed, however, that the graduating 
class of Glenwood was to be particularly nice to 
Miss Olaine for the rest of the school year. 

“ We’ll just heap coals of fire on her head,” said 
Nita. 

“ Hope it’ll singe her hair, then,” sniffed Tavia. 

When the others were gone, she and Dorothy 
discussed the other—and more interesting—detail 
of the Rector Street School fire. The other girls 
had been told nothing about Celia and Tom 
Moran. 

“Where do you suppose he went after that 
fire?” queried Dorothy, sitting on the edge of 
the bed with her chin in the cup of her hand. 

“Tom Moran?” 

“ Of course.” 

“ The paper said, several days later, you know, 
that he had left town. People had looked him up. 
The parents of the children who were saved with 
the teacher wanted to make up a purse for him.” 

“And this card,” said Dorothy, reflectively, 
taking the postal card from her pocket, “says that 
the union knows nothing about him. He disap¬ 
peared after that fire—and he was a regular 
kero! ” 


WHY DID HE DISAPPEAR? 131 

“ Sure he was,” agreed Tavla. “ Maybe he was 
such a modest one that he ran away.” 

But Dorothy was not listening to her jokes. She 
murmured, thoughtfully: 

“ I wonder if Miss Olaine knows what became 
of Tom Moran?” 


CHAPTER XVI 


Dorothy’s wits at work 

“The Night of the White Giant,” whispered 
Ned Ebony, shrilly, as she put her head in at the 
door of the chums’ room at Glenwood. 

“ Boo! how you scared me! ” exclaimed Tavia, 
preparing to throw her Latin grammer—it was a 
book she would willingly have spared altogether 
—at Ned’s devoted head. 

“ Hist!” 

Nita Brent looked over the stooping Edna. 
Above her head at the narrow opening appeared 
the rather puffy-looking face of Cologne. It was 
evident that the “heavy lady” had been asleep, 
but now she yawned and said: 

“ Hist twice! Come on, girls! ” 

“ Don’t shoot, Tavia. Like Davy Crockett’s 
coon, we’ll come down,” said Ned, dodging the 
threatening book. 

“ You’ll have Olaine—or some other teacher— 
upon our trail,” gasped Nita. 

“ What’s up ? ” demanded Dorothy, shutting her 
book and leaving a hairpin for a bookmark. 

132 


DOROTHY’S WITS AT WORK 


133 


“We are. So must you be. And they will have 
to! ” declared Ned. u We’re for getting the whole 
bunch. It’s the Night of the White Giant, I tell 
you.” 

“ Oh, goody, goody-gander! ” exclaimed Tavia, 
clapping her hands—but softly. “ I had forgotten. 
We haven’t had one this winter.” 

“ It’s kid tricks, girls,” complained Dorothy. 

“List to her! Wow! ” gasped Tavia, and land¬ 
ed a soft sofa pillow right in the back of Dor¬ 
othy’s neck. “ Don’t you dare suggest we’re grow¬ 
ing old.” 

“ ‘Silver threads among the gold’,” quoted Col¬ 
ogne. “ I know. She’s getting rheumatic, too. 

Second childhood is close upon her-” 

“ Stop ranting and come on! ” commanded Ned 
Ebony. “ High overshoes—mittens—everything! 
the snow is just soft enough. If we’re careful 
we’ll make Olaine’s eyes bulge out in the morning. 
She never saw an old-fashioned Glenwood ‘ white 
giant.’ ” 

“ ‘ The little dimpled darling has never seen 
Christmas yet,’ ” quoted Tavia in a high, mincing 
tone. “Where’s my rub-a-dub-dubs, Dorothy 
Dale? Did you eat ’em, I want to know?” 

But when the chums were dressed, and the other 
girls of the upper class filed into the corridor, 
dressed for the frolic, there was little noise. This 



134 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


was an escapade that was not indulged in every 
winter by the Glenwood girls, for not often was 
the snow in the state it was at present. 

There was plenty of it; it was soft and 
“packy,” and there was starlight enough to aid 
them in their work, although there was no moon. 

The pedestal of the statue they proposed erect¬ 
ing was made of several huge balls rolled on the 
campus and then set upright in a circle, in the 
middle of the lawn, facing the teachers’ windows. 

Other smaller balls were rolled swiftly and, as 
they had to be brought from a greater distance 
as the figure progressed, they were rolled upon 
sleds and dragged to the scene of operations. With 
pieces of board and a couple of shovels Tavia, 
Dorothy and Cologne shaped the round body 
of the giant as it grew in bulk and height. 

“ We’ll make the biggest and the tallest giant 
Glenwood ever saw,” declared Tavia. “Come 
on with that ball, Neddie. Hoist it up here!” 

When one of the snowballs, raised in the arms 
of four girls to be adjusted upon the figure, 
chanced to burst like a bomb, there was much 
smothered hilarity—from those who were not en¬ 
gulfed in the mishap. 

“ Oh! oh! oh! ” cried Nita. “ I feel as if I’d 
been caught in an avalanche in the Alps! Good* 
ness me! how wet that snow is! ” 


DOROTHY’S WITS AT WORK 


135 

“All the dry snow’s ‘give out’, Nita. We’ve 
got to use the wet kind,” giggled Tavia. 

“ If you had two quarts of snow down your 
back-” began Ned Ebony, in disgust. 

“ Come on! come on! ” urged Cologne. “You’re 
wasting time. Who knows but Olaine will be out 
here any minute?” 

“ Oh, I hope not! ” cried one of the other girls. 
“ I am trying my very best to treat her nicely; and 
I am sorry for her. But she is the most cantanker¬ 
ous thing! So there! ” 

“Come on! come on!” Tavia kept urging. 

“ Hand ’em up here- My goodness gracious, 

Agnes! I almost went down that time. If I only 
had a nice young man up here to help me hold on 
this slippery eminence-” 

“ Where would you ever get a young man—nice 
or otherwise—at Glenwood?” demanded Ned 
Ebony. 

“ Don’t know. Advertise for one, I guess,” 
grunted the struggling Tavia. “ ‘ Lost, Strayed, or 
Stolen—One young man—preferably blue eyed.’ 
Going to put that in the ‘Agony Column’ of the 
New York Screecher-” 

“Oh, Tavia!” gasped Dorothy, standing up 
straight on the giant’s “ waist line ” and staring up 
at her friend. 

“What’s up now? Mercy!” ejaculated Tavia, 






136 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


making a grab for her. “ You'll be down next, if 
you don’t look out. What’s the matter ? ” 

“You—you gave me an idea,” said Dorothy, 
slowly. 

“Hope I never give you another,” declared 
Tavia. “Look out, now! here comes that part 
of the giant called—colloquially—his ‘ dining 
room ’. It must be adjusted properly. Let’s have 
a real shapely giant—do.” 

“He’ll look as though he had swallowed Jack 
the Giant Killer, all right,” panted Ned Ebony. 

“ Not much! Give me that shovel,” cried Tavia, 
“ I am going to slice off some of his aldermanic 
proportions. Huh! we don’t want him to look as 
though he’d suffered from earthquake and every¬ 
thing had fallen into his ‘ dining room,’ do we?” 

“You’re the most dreadful girl! ” sighed Col¬ 
ogne. 

Meanwhile Dorothy was thinking deeply. There 
was too much going on for her to confide her 
“idea” to her chum. And, later, she decided 
to wait and see how it “panned out.” 

The white giant grew apace. The girls dragged 
around two of the gardener’s ladders, by the aid 
of which they finished the effigy handsomely. He 
had a noble round head, set firmly on a “bull 
neck ”; a white cardboard nose stuck in the middle 
of his face, with pieces of coal for teeth- 

“ Shows the deplorable result of not using Some- 



DOROTHY’S WITS AT WORK 


137 


body’s Toothpaste—a ‘horrible example’ for the 
youngsters. Miss Mingle is always at ’em to use 
their toothbrushes,” declared Tavia. 

The grinning mask of the white giant had black 
eyes, as well, and a bushel basket served as a hat. 
The front of his waistcoat was decorated with 
round turnips for buttons. Altogether he was 
a striking-looking figure in the starlight, but was 
even more so the next day when the sun shone 
on him. 

His head was as high as the second story win¬ 
dows. The rest of the school “oh-ed” and 
“ ah-ed ” about it, wondering how the big girls 
had built such an enormous statue. 

Miss Olaine expected Mrs. Pangborn to con¬ 
sider the frolic a punishable offence. But the prin¬ 
cipal recognized the “white giant” as an estab¬ 
lished outlet for the exuberance of the senior class 
of her pupils. Many a snowman of huge pro¬ 
portions stood on the campus for weeks, until the 
rains and winds of March and April carried away 
the last vestige of the heaped-up snow. 

Miss Olaine was used to the strict discipline of 
the city public school; she could not understand 
Mrs. Pangborn’s leniency in her treatment of per¬ 
fectly harmless escapades—and those girls who 
took part in them. 

Meanwhile Dorothy’s wits—spurred by Tavia’s 
irresponsible remark about the “ Agony Column ” 


138 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

of the newspaper—had been working overtime. 
The personal column of a newspaper did not ap¬ 
peal to her; but she believed that advertising for 
little Celia’s brother might bring about some re¬ 
sult. 

She chose the Salvation Army paper, in which 
she knew there was a column devoted to requests 
for news of “ absent friends,” and she wrote to the 
editor in New York all about Celia, and why she 
so desired to get some trace of the missing iron¬ 
worker. 

The editor kindly put her paragraph in the 
paper and sent her a copy with the request marked 
with a blue pencil. And that marked paragraph 
occasioned more excitement in Glenwood school 
than Dorothy expected. 

Matters had run along pretty smoothly after 
the Night of the White Giant, and the giant him¬ 
self was already a devastated, melting pillar on 
the school lawn. The Easter vacation was in 
sight. 

“ You’ll surely go home with me, Doro—to dear 
old Dalton?” sang Tavia, hugging her friend. 
“You promised-” 

“ And I wouldn’t miss it for anything 1 ” de¬ 
clared Dorothy, laughing gaily. u I’m just crazy 
to see all the folks there. And Nat and Ned say 
they’ll come—going to stop with the Perritons. 



DOROTHY’S WITS AT WORK 


139 


You know—Abe Perriton is in college with my 
cousins.” 

“ Good enough! ” exclaimed Tavia. “ Perhaps 
there’ll be boys enough for once to i go ’round.’ ” 

“ Oh! ” exclaimed Dorothy, with twinkling 
eyes, “somebody else will be there, too.” 

“Who else? Joe and Roger?” 

“ I suppose they’ll tease to come. And they can 
stay with their little friends just as I stay with 
you, and the big boys camp down on Abe’s folks. 

But there is one other-Oh, Tavia! can’t you 

guess?” 

Tavia’s cheeks had begun to burn and she shook 
her head firmly. “ I don’t care to know. Nobody 
in particular, of course,” she said, with an impu¬ 
dent assumption of not caring. 

“You do care,” frowned Dorothy. “And you 
must guess. Ned just wrote me that he’s sure to 
be in Dalton if you are there.” 

“The cheek of those boys! ” observed Tavia, 
tossing her head. 

“ * B.N.,’ ” said Dorothy, teasingly. 

“‘B.N.’?” queried Tavia, with an elaborate 
air of not understanding. “ Are you sure it isn’t 
‘ N.B.’ ? That means ‘ note well.’ ” 

“ It would never have happened if you hadn’t 
noted him well in the first place,” chuckled Doro¬ 
thy. “ You have chained him to your chariot 
wheels — you know you have — Pretty!” mur- 



140 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


mured Dorothy, and, hugging her friend tightly, 
whispered in her burning ear: 

“ Bob Niles. You know he’ll be there.” 

“Oh!” yawned Tavia, beginning to recover 
from her confusion. “ That boy? Why, I had al¬ 
most forgotten him.” 

“ Fibber! ” said Dorothy, pinching her. 

“ I really thought you meant the young brake- 
man on the train when we came over from New 
York,” sighed Tavia, affectedly. “Wasn’t he 
lovely?” 

“You can’t fool me, Tavia,” declared her 
friend, laughing. “ I don’t believe you even re¬ 
member the color of that railroad man’s eyes.” 

“ Blue—to match his uniform,” said Tavia, 
smartly. 

“Who ever heard of a Navy blue eye?” de¬ 
manded Dorothy. 

“ Sure! wait till you get struck in the eye once; 
I was. And for a week before it turned yellow 
and green, it was the most be-you-ti-ful—Navy— 
blue-” 



CHAPTER XVII 


TAVIA TAKES A HAND 

It was a few days later that the War Cry ar® 
rived in the mail, for Dorothy. The young girl 
knew that the paper was widely circulated, and 
likewise that it was circulated among people who 
might know Tom Moran. Men of his trade, 
traveling about the country, often drop into Sal¬ 
vation Army meetings for very loneliness, if noth¬ 
ing more. 

“ Oh, I just hope he’ll see it, and learn about 
how Celia wants him.” said Dorothy, clasping her 
hands. “ The poor little thing-” 

“ What do you s’pose Miss Olaine would say if 
she saw this notice?” interposed Tavia, after 
reading the blue-penciled paragraph. 

“ Miss Olaine ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I can’t imagine why you say that,” observed 
Dorothy, puzzled. 

“ Didn’t I tell you haw startled she was when 
she read Tam Moran’s name on that postal 
card?” 



142 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ But nonsense, Tavia! ” cried Dorothy. “ That 
was because she was reminded of the awful fire in 
which she came so near to losing her life.” 

“ How do you know? ” snapped Tavia. 

“ But—my dear-” 

“ I tell you I believe she knows Tom Moran. 
Of course she would remember him, when he 
played the hero in that fire.” 

“ It’s ridiculous for you to talk that way, 
Tavia,” declared Dorothy. “ You always do go 
flying off on a tangent-” 

“ Then I get a free ride. Don’t worry. I am 
welcome to my own ‘ idee ’; am I not, Doro? ” 

“ I suppose you are.” 

“ Then I stick to it,” said Tavia, with a toss of 
her head. “ Olaine was startled because you were 
making inquiries about Tom Moran. Haven’t I 
been watching her— 4 hout of me heagle heye,’ as 
the Cockney villain says in the play-” 

“You and your plays!” sniffed Dorothy. 
“ Your romantic nature is working overtime again. 
I do wish you would make it behave.” 

But Tavia secretly held to her own belief. She, 
and not Dorothy, had observed Miss Olaine’s emo¬ 
tion when she came across the postal card in the 
mail. Pooh! merely the remainder of that Rector 
Street School fire would not make the teacher look 
like that. You couldn’t fool Tavia—at least, so she 
said in her heart. 





TAVIA TAKES A HAND 


143 


She secured the copy of the Salvation Army 
paper when Dorothy was not near, and carried 
it into the recitation room in her blouse. Miss 
Olaine was more than usually severe that morn¬ 
ing, and perhaps Tavia was thus encouraged to 
“ spring ” her little surprise, as she called it. 

She made an excuse to go to the teacher’s desk. 
She was not the only one who went there while 
Miss Olaine was at the blackboard, so the plot¬ 
ter did not think she would be suspected more than 
any of several other members of the class. 

She laid the paper, with the page uppermost 
on which was printed the paragraph asking for 
news of Tom Moran, among the teacher’s books. 
And surely Miss Olaine could not miss noticing 
that paragraph with the broad, blue pencil marks 
about it! 

Tavia could not attend to the problem under 
discussion, her mind being centered upon what was 
going to happen when Miss Olaine got back to her 
desk. Therefore when the teacher shot a query 
at Tavia suddenly she made a woeful exhibition 
of herself. 

“ Inattention, Miss Travers. I will speak to 
you of that later,” snapped Miss Olaine, striding 
back to her desk. 

“Now she’ll see it! ” whispered Tavia to her¬ 
self, scarcely minding the threatened black mark. 

But Miss Olaine went on with her instructions 


144 DOROTHY DALE'S PROMISE 

to the class, and did not see the paper. She sat 
there, looking out over the class, and Tavia be¬ 
gan to wonder if ever she would drop her gaze 
and see that blue-penciled paragraph in the JVar 
Cry staring up at her. 

Tavia really became so nervous that she could 
not follow the trend of the lesson at all. Once 
more Miss Olaine asked her a question, and the 
girl floundered most desperately and could not 
answer. 

She could only think just then of Dorothy. Sup¬ 
pose Miss Olaine should accuse Dorothy of put¬ 
ting the paper there? Dorothy's name was on the 
label pasted upon the margin of the paper. 

“ You evidently have no interest in this recita¬ 
tion, Miss,” said the teacher, sneeringly, when 
Tavia had made another lamentable exhibition of 
incompetence. 

“ Oh, yes, I have, ma’am,” gasped Tavia. 

“ You may come to me after school this after¬ 
noon and explain, then, why you show so little 
interest now,” declared the teacher. 

Then her gaze dropped to the desk. She saw 
the paper, and Tavia saw that her attention was 
almost immediately fixed by the marked para¬ 
graph. 

There was a sudden silence in the room. Of 
course, the other girls knew nothing about the 
interest Tavia had in what the teacher was read- 


TAVIA TAKES A HAND 


145 


mg; but to her it seemed as though everything 
came to a standstill while Miss Olaine read and 
digested the paragraph. 

She suddenly looked up and Tavia saw a deep 
flush come into her sallow cheek. She fumbled the 
paper, too, with shaking fingers. Her lips parted 
as though she were about to speak angrily. 

Then the color left her face as though all the 
blood had been drained from her arteries in an 
instant! She sank back in her seat, with the back 
of her head against the chair. 

“Oh! oh!” whispered Ned Ebony, who sud¬ 
denly saw the teacher’s condition. 

Molly Richards was nearest, and she jumped up 
and ran to the platform. Tavia felt as though her 
own limbs were powerless. The girl realized that 
the teacher had fainted. 

“ Oh, dear me! whatever shall we do? ” gasped 
Dick, chafing the teacher’s hands. 

“ Run get some water—or some smelling 
salts! ” cried Edna Black; but she never offered 
to go herself. 

It was Dorothy who knew enough to act sen¬ 
sibly. When she looked up from her book and 
saw Miss Olaine’s condition, she ran for the water 
at once and brought it to the desk. With her 
handkerchief she began to bathe the teacher’s 
eyes and temples. 

The paper was pushed off the desk into the 


146 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


wastebasket. Nobody noticed this save Tavia. 
And she could barely stand up by her seat, she felt 
so weak. 

The result of her experiment had shocked her 
quite as much as Miss Olaine. She was hovering 
on the edge of the group of excited and sympa¬ 
thetic girls when the teacher opened her eyes. 

For a moment Miss Olaine stared about, con¬ 
fused and frightened. Then she put out both 
hands and pushed those nearest her away. Her 
hand clutched Dorothy’s wrist and she suddenly 
glared into the latter’s sympathetic eyes. 

“ What are you doing here? ” she asked, thick¬ 
ly. “ Where is it?” 

She looked all around the desk. The color be¬ 
gan to flood back into her face again and there 
could be no doubt but that the teacher was angry. 
She stared again at Dorothy. 

“ Go to your seat, Miss Dale. I—I shall look 
into—into this matter later. Go to your seat, in¬ 
stantly ! ” 

“ But—but, Miss Olaine-” 

Dorothy was certainly amazed. The teacher, 
however, waved her away. “ Immediately! ” she 
gasped. “Or I shall report you to Mrs. Pang- 
born.” 

The other girls moved away, staring and sur¬ 
prised. Of course Dorothy took her seat; but 


TAVIA TAKES A HAND 147 

her face showed that she was both hurt and puz¬ 
zled. 

Tavia slipped into her own place, the War Cry 
hidden in her blouse. She had taken it out of the 
teacher’s wastebasket when no one observed her. 
She was really frightened, now, by what she had 
brought about. 

Dorothy was suspected, it was evident. Miss 
Olaine believed that the marked paper had been 
thrust under her eyes by the girl whose name and 
address were upon the margin. 

Now, what would Miss Olaine do? What 
could she do, in fact? It really was a personal 
matter. She could not punish Dorothy very well 
for merely laying that paper on the desk. 

So Tavia told herself. She had suddenly lost 
grip on her courage. Tavia was not usually a 
cowardly girl—not even morally. 

But she shrank from explaining to the teacher. 
Something was gravely wrong with Miss Olaine, 
and it was connected with Tom Moran. It 
wasn’t the mention of the Rector Street School 
fire that had “ sent her off,” as Tavia expressed it, 
on that former occasion, when Miss Olaine read 
Dorothy’s postal card. 

There was some reason for Miss Olaine to be 
disturbed by the mention of Tom Moran’s name. 
Tavia had suspected it; but now she was sorry 
that she had gone to work to prove her suspicion! 


148 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ I’ve got myself into an awful mess again! w 
groaned Tavia, in spirit. “And I daren’t tell 
Dorothy—not yet. She’d be mad. 

“ Of course, if old Olaine tries to punish Doro 

for what I’ve done- Oh, she won’t dare! I 

wonder what is the matter with her? And what 
she knows about that Tom Moran? 

“ I—I wish I hadn’t ever put my finger in the 
pie,” sighed Tavia. “ For certain sure it is most 
awfully burned—and serves me right.” 

She watched the teacher closely for the rest of 
the recitation hour. Miss Olaine seemed to be 
peering all about her desk for the paper, and she 
did not find it. Then she glared again at Doro¬ 
thy. 

“ Oh, dear me! ” groaned Tavia. “ I’ve done 
a cruel and foolish thing, I am afraid. And I— 
I don’t dare tell Doro about it! ” 



CHAPTER XVIII 


THE RUNAWAY 

“Goodness to gracious — and all hands 
around! ” 

“ This is the muckiest, murkiest, most miser-a¬ 
ble, muddy day that ever was invented.” 

“ Wish we could set it up somewhere and shoot 
at it with our popguns! ” 

“ Hate to stay in the house, and it isn’t any fun 
to go out.” 

“Can’t—can’t we play something?” urged 
Dorothy Dale, feebly, hearing her friends all 
blaming the weather for their own shortcomings. 
It was Saturday afternoon—the first real soft, 
spring day of the season. It was depressing. 

“ Ya-as,” yawned Cologne. “Let’s pla-a-ay— 
wow! That most dislocated my jaws, I declare! ” 

“ Play * cumjicum ’ or ‘ all around the mulberry 
bush,’ ” sniffed Edna Black. “ You do think we 
are still kids; don’t you, Doro? ” 

“I can’t help it,” returned Dorothy, smiling. 
“ You act that way.” 


149 


150 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“Oh! listen to her! Villainess!” gasped Ta¬ 
via, threatening her chum from the broad window 
sill of Number Nineteen with both clenched fists. 

“Well, it isn’t really fitten to go out, as Chloe, 
the colored maid, says,” remarked Nita. “And 
what we shall really do with all this long after¬ 
noon and evening-” 

“Let’s have a sing,” suggested Molly, passing 
around the last of a box of chocolate fudge she 
had made. 

“ Miss Olaine will stop us. She’s got a head¬ 
ache and has retired to her den,” said Dorothy, 
shaking her head. 

“I tell you!” gasped Tavia, quickly. “Let’s 
play a play—a real play. All dress up, and paint 
our faces—Ned shall be the hero, and we’ll dress 
her up like a boy. And I’ll be the adventuress— 
I really just love to play I’m wicked—for I never 
get a chance to be.” 

f “ You’re wicked enough naturally. It would be 
more of a stunt for you to play the innocuous hero¬ 
ine—or the ‘ on-gi-nu,’ ” drawled Rose-Mary 
Markin. 

“ Oh! what an awful slap on the wrist! ” cried 
Molly Richards. 

“Et tu, Brute?” growled Tavia, in despairing 
accents. 

1 “Now, what’s the use?” again demanded 
Dorothy. “ You know very well that Miss Olaine 



THE RUNAWAY 


I5i 

will stop any fun that we start in the house.” 

“You admit her unfairness; do you, Miss?” 
cried Ned Ebony. 

“ She is perfectly outrageous of late! ” gasped 
Dorothy. 

“To you, too,” groaned Cologne. “And no 
reason for it. You never did her any harm.” 

“ Not that I know of,” admitted Dorothy, sadly. 

Tavia kept very still. She had no part in this 
discussion, but she felt “mean all over.” She be¬ 
lieved she could explain the sudden dislike Miss 
Olaine seemed to have taken to Dorothy Dale. 

“ If we hadn’t all promised to treat her just as 
nice as we could-” began Molly. 

“And we’ll keep it up to the end of the term,” 
said Dorothy, decidedly. 

“Oh, yes! ” exclaimed Ned. “We’ll be lady¬ 
like, be it ever so painful.” 

“ It’s easy,” interposed Tavia, with a grin, “ to 
be as polite as she is. Whatever is working on 
Olaine’s mind-” 

“ It must be something awful. Nothing less 
than murder,” declared Ned. 

“And now it’s begun to rain again,” observed 
Cologne, gloomily. 

“Just a mist,” quoth Dorothy. 

“Well! we could have missed it without crying 
about it. Now we can’t go out at all,” said Ta¬ 
via, inclined to be snappy. 




152 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


She turned to the window again. While the 
others were gabbling inconsequently, she stared 
off across the campus, already turning green, to 
the break in the tree-line where a considerable 
.stretch of road could be seen plainly. 

“ Oh! the poor little kid! ” she suddenly said. 

“What’s the matter now?” drawled Rose- 
Mary. “ Is Sammy Bensell’s goat on the ram¬ 
page?” 

“Goat? Who said anything about goat? 
What d’ye mean, goat? ” demanded Tavia, with¬ 
out turning from the window. 

“ You said kid-” 

“ And it is! A little girl! Just see here, Doro! ” 
cried Tavia, more energetically. “She’s lost one 
of those big rubbers in the mud. There! there 
goes the other-” 

Her chum ran to the window to look out and 
the others crowded up to peer over their shoulders. 
They all saw the little figure struggling along the 
muddy road toward the school gate. She had a 
hood on, and a bedrabbled-looking coat, and tried 
to carry a broken umbrella. 

“ The poor little thing! ” murmured Cologne. 

Dorothy suddenly uttered a cry, backed out of 
the group with energy, and dashed for the door. 

“What is it?” gasped Ned Ebony, who had 
been almost overturned. 

“Who is it?” added Tavia, herself bursting 




THE RUNAWAY 


i53 


through, the group on the trail of her room¬ 
mate. 

u It’s Celia—little Celia! ” cried Dorothy, as 
she ran out of the room without hat, coat, or over¬ 
shoes. 

Tavia followed her. It was a race between 
them to the gateway of Glenwood. They got there 
just as the wind-blown and saturated figure of 
Mrs. Ann Hogan’s little slave-of-all-work arrived 
at the open gateway. 

“ Oh, please! ” shrilled the child’ s sweet voice, 
“is this the big school where my Miss Doro¬ 
thy- Oh, my dear Dorothy Dale! ” she con¬ 

cluded, and ran sobbing into Dorothy’s arms. 

There was great confusion for the next few 
moments—not only at the gate, where Dorothy and 
Tavia took turns in hugging and quieting the sob¬ 
bing child—but when they returned with Celia to 
the porch, where the other girls had gathered to 
satisfy their curiosity about the stranger. 

“ No,” said Dorothy, decidedly; “ you must not 
all talk at once. It bothers her. Tavia and I are 

going to take her to our room- No! you can’t 

all of you come. Go on about your business. By 
supper time Celia will be all right and you shall 
all get acquainted with her.” 

She picked the little girl up in her arms—oh, 
how thin the little body was!—and carried her all 
the way to Number Nineteen. Tavia “ tagged ” 




154 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

closely, just as interested as she could be in the 
child. 

“ How did you get here, Celia ? ” demanded 
Dorothy, gravely, as she sat before the register, 
“ skinning ” off the little one’s damp stockings, 
after Tavia had removed the worn shoes. 

“I rode-ed part of the way,” confessed Celia, 
nodding. “ But Bentley didn’t know about it. I 
hide-ed in the back of the wagon.” 

“My dear!” gasped Dorothy. “You ran 
away? ” 

“ Bully! ” murmured Tavia. “ I love her for 
it.” 

“Hush!” commanded Dorothy; but Celia did 
not hear what Tavia said. 

“Yes, Dorothy Dale, I jes’ had to run away to 
see you. I jes’ knowed I could find you.” 

“ But Mrs. Hogan-” 

“ She—she wouldn’t let me come,” choked Ce¬ 
lia. “ I asked her. She said I wouldn’t die if I 
didn’t see you; but I knowed I should die,” added 
the child, with confidence. 

“ Oh, my dear! ” almost sobbed Dorothy. 

“ So I corned,” said Celia, blandly smiling upon 
Dorothy and Tavia. “ I hope you and your lady 
friend are glad to see me, Miss Dorothy?” 

“ Oh, aren’t we—just! ” murmured Tavia, under 
her breath. 



THE RUNAWAY 


155 

“ But I am afraid Mrs. Hogan will punish you,” 
remarked Dorothy. 

“Well,” replied the philosophical infant, “she 
can’t punish me before I see you—for I see you 
now, dear Dorothy Dale! ” She laughed shril¬ 
ly, threw her arms about the bigger girl’s neck 
and clasped her hands tightly. 

Tavia was delighted with the cunning little 
thing; she did not think of how seriously Celia 
might have to pay for her escapade. 

“And to find her way here—all of eight miles! ” 
she cried. 

“The Morans is very, very smart,” declared 
Celia, gravely, repeating what she had evidently 
heard older people say many times. “And when 
Jim Bentley turned off the straight road I slipped 
out of the cart behind, and I axed a man was this 
the road to the school, and he said yes, and so I 
corned.” 

“ She must have walked a mile and a half at 
that! ” cried Tavia. “ She is a smart little thing. 
And how did you know this was the school, dear? ” 

“I didn’t know—for sure,” admitted Celia. 
“ But it didn’t look like houses, and it didn’t look 
jes’ like Findling asylums; so I ’spected it must be 
a school.” 

“And she never saw a school before! ” cried 
Tavia. 

“Oh, yes, Miss Dorothy’s friend,” said Celia, 


156 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


demurely. “ I went to school some when I was at 
the Findling. It was right on our block, and the 
matron let us big girls go,” and the way she said 
that “ big ” Tavia declared was “just killing! ” 

“ So you big girls went to school? ” queried Ta¬ 
via. “ How far did you get in school, dear? ” 

“ Oh—dear—me—let’s see,” said the little one, 
thoughtfully. “ Why, I got as far as ‘ gozinto ’— 
yes, that’s it; we studied ‘gozinto.’ ” 

“ ‘ Gozinto ’ ?” repeated Tavia, looking at Doro¬ 
thy in wonder. “ What under the sun does the 
child mean ? Whoever heard of ‘ gozinto ’ ? ” 
“Why, don’t they study ‘gozinto’ here in this 
school?” queried the round eyed Celia. “You 
know, it’s four gozinto eight twicet, an’ three go¬ 
zinto twelve four times, an’ like that. It’s re’l 
int’restin’,” said the child, nodding. 

“Oh! the funny little thing!” cried Tavia, 
bursting out laughing. “ Did you ever hear the 
like of that, Dorothy? ” 

Dorothy was amused—as she had been before 
—by Celia’s funny sayings; but she was interested 
more now in stripping off the child’s poor gar¬ 
ments—for she feared they were damp—and 
wrapping her in one of her own nightgowns. 

“Now, you’re going right into Dorothy’s bed; 
aren’t you, dear? And you’ll go to sleep, and then 
we’ll talk more afterward? ” 

Dorothy’s motherly way pleased the wearied 


THE RUNAWAY 


157 


child. “ I’ll do jes’ what you say, Dorothy Dale,” 
declared Celia. “ But—but has you found Tom 
yet? ” 

“ Not yet, dear; but I believe I am on the trail 
of him,” declared Dorothy, softly. 

Tavia turned her back quickly when the missing 
man was mentioned. She had never plucked up 
courage to tell her chum how she had put before 
Miss Olaine the printed paragraph about Tom 
Moran. Miss Olaine had never really punished 
Dorothy for Tavia’s act; but since that time Tavia 
knew that the teacher had treated Dorothy more 
harshly than ever. 

Tavia knew she had done wrong, but she did 
not know just how to straighten the matter out. 
To tell Dorothy would not help at all; and to 
broach the subject to Miss Olaine might do more 
harm than good. 

The wearied child went to sleep almost as soon 
as her curly head touched Dorothy’s pillow. The 
girls sat beside her and whispered their comments 
upon the incident, while the garments of little 
Celia dried at the register. 

“ That Mrs. Hogan will beat her; won’t she? ” 
demanded Tavia. “ I’d like to beat her! ” 

“ I don’t know that the woman actually abuses 
her—not in that way. Celia doesn’t seem to be 
afraid of being beaten.” 

“ She’s a plucky little thing.” 


158 DOROTHY DALE'S PROMISE 


“Yes, she doesn’t cringe when Mrs. Hogan 
threatens to strike her. I noticed that when I 
stayed over night at the farmhouse,” said Doro¬ 
thy. 

“ But she isn’t half fed,” declared Tavia. “ See 
how thin her little arms and legs are! It’s a 
shame.” 

“ I am afraid Celia doesn’t have proper nour¬ 
ishment. She gets no milk nor eggs. Mrs. Hogan 
sells every pound of butter she makes, too. Now 
those things are just what a frail little thing like 
Celia needs. Mrs. Hogan is a female miser.” 

“ A miserine—eh? ” chuckled Tavia, who could 
not help joking even though so angry with the 
farm woman who half starved her little slavey. 

“ I must go down and tell Mrs. Pangborn about 
her,” sighed Dorothy. “Otherwise there will be 
trouble.” 

“ But we’ll keep her till after supper- Oh, 

do! ” exclaimed Tavia, under her breath. 

“ I don’t see how we can get her home to-night. 
Maybe Mrs. Pangborn can telephone to some 
neighbor who lives near that Hogan woman-” 

Dorothy ran down to the school principal. 
Miss Olaine had retired to bed, it was understood, 
for the rest of the day, and Dorothy was glad. 
She wanted all the girls to see Celia at supper 
time, and “ make much ” of her. 

Mrs. Pangborn called up Central and learned 




THE RUNAWAY 


159 


the number of the nearest correspondent of the 
telephone company to the Hogan farm. There 
they took a message for the farm woman. Al¬ 
ready the news had gone around the neighborhood 
that Mrs. Hogan’s little girl was lost. 

“ But she is not likely to get ’way over here for 
her before morning,” said the school principal. 
“I do not like that woman, Dorothy; and what 
you tell me about this child makes me fear that 
she is not a proper person to have charge of the 
little one.” 

“ I am sure she isn’t! ” cried Dorothy. “ If we 
could only find her brother,” and she went on to 
relate to Mrs. Pangborn how she and Tavia had 
found out all about Tom Moran and the Rector 
Street School fire, and how the man had disap¬ 
peared after rescuing the children and Miss Olaine 
from the burning building. 

“Why, that is very interesting,” said Mrs. 
Pangborn, after Dorothy had finished. “ I must 
tell Miss Olaine about the child.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


ANOTHER REASON FOR FINDING TOM MORAN 

Dorothy had freshened up little Celia’s gar¬ 
ments as well as she could while the child slept. 
She was handier with the needle than Tavia, al¬ 
though the latter had greatly improved in domes¬ 
tic science since those early days when she first 
began to take pattern of Dorothy, back in Dalton. 

“ Those shoes aren’t fit for the child to wear,” 
grumbled Tavia, who was helping to dress Celia 
when the warning bell for supper rang. 

“ Come on! Hurry up! ” commanded Dorothy. 
“ We’re late now. Haven’t you got her shoes 
on yet?” 

“ Yes, ma’am! all but one,” responded Tavia. 

“ ‘All but one! ’ How many feet has the poor 
child got? ” cried Dorothy. “ You talk as though 
she were a centipede.” 

“She wriggles as though she had a hundred 
panted Tavia. “ Do be still, dearie—for a 
minute.” 

“Celia’s full of wriggles,” declared Dorothy. 
“Now come. Aren’t you hungry, dear? ” 

160 


ANOTHER REASON FOR FINDING TOM 161 


“ Oh-o-o! You jes’ bet I am! ” exclaimed Celia, 
running to the door ahead of her friends. 

“ Nice bread and milk for little girls—and 
plenty of it,” promised Dorothy. 

“ Don’t they haf to save the milk here at this 
school?” asked Celia, wonderingly. “ Sometimes 
I get a little skimmed milk; but Mrs. Hogan says 
it pays 'best to give it to the hens and pigs.” 

“I suppose it does!” growled Tavia. “She 
can’t sell little girls when they are fattened.” 

“ Hush! ” warned Dorothy, opening the door 
for the impatient Celia. “ Now, wait and walk be¬ 
side me—like a little lady.” 

The other girls were eager to see and speak 
with the little runaway. Miss Olaine being ab¬ 
sent from her station at the head of the senior 
table, the classmates of Dorothy and Tavia hardly 
ate, watching Celia and listening to her prattle. 

“ She just is the cutest little thing that ever hap¬ 
pened ! ” murmured Cologne. 

Dorothy had placed Celia between herself and 
Tavia, and the little girl sat upon a dictionary 
borrowed from the principal’s office. Celia had 
been neglected in many ways, one of which was in 
the niceties of etiquette. So Dorothy whispered 
to her to use her fork more frequently than she 
did a spoon, or her fingers—for there was some¬ 
thing beside bread and milk for the little visitor. 

“Ain’t that funny?” cried Celia, in her shrill 


162 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


voice. “ I used to eat with my spoon, an’ now you 
tell me to eat with my fork, Dorothy; how old 
must I be ’fore I eat with my knife—say? ” 

The upper class had the fun of Celia at table; 
but afterward she was borne off to the gym., where 
the whole school could entertain her. 

Tavia took charge. The girls got into their 
gym. suits and an up-to-the-minute circus was ar¬ 
ranged for the visitor’s entertainment. There was 
“ground and lofty tumbling,” clown tricks, jump¬ 
ing through hoops, Ned Ebony in tights and tinsel 
to represent the usual lady “bare-back rider,” all 
the known ferocious beasts in chair-rung cages, 
with the labels displayed very prominently, in¬ 
cluding the “ Gyrogustus ” and the “ Chrisome'la- 
bypun-ktater”; and at last there was a splendid side 
show, with Cologne in a position of prominence 
as the $10,000 Fat Beauty, Molly Richards as an 
Albino Twin, Nita as the Tatooed Lady, well dis¬ 
guised with red, blue and green chalk, and Tavia 
herself as the Bearded Lady, with so much black 
fringe on her face that she could scarcely talk. 

Celia entered into the spirit of all the fun, ap¬ 
peared scared into fits by the roaring of the lions 
and the fierce appearance of the other astonishing 
animals; laughed at the antics of the clowns, was 
thrilled by the acrobatics, and wasn’t quite sure 
that Nita’s “ tattooing ” would really come off if 
you rubbed it! 


ANOTHER REASON FOR FINDING TOM 163 


The nine o’clock bell sent all hands scattering 
to their rooms. Perhaps Mrs. Pangborn had been 
more lenient than usual this evening; at least, none 
of the other teachers had interfered with the 
hilarity of the school in general—and the strict 
Miss Olaine was shut away in her room. 

But as Dorothy and Tavia, bearing the sleepy 
Celia in a “ chair ” between them, passed the door 
of Miss Olaine’s room, they saw Mrs. Pangborn 
come forth. 

“Let me see your little friend, Dorothy,” she 
said, hastily, and the chums stopped to introduce 
Celia Moran to the principal. 

“So this is Tom Moran’s little sister; is it?” 
Mrs. Pangborn said, patting the little girl’s cheek. 

“ Do—do you know my brother, Tom Moran, 
ma’am?” asked Celia, sleepily. “He’s big—an’ 
he’s got such red hair—and he builds bridges an’ 
things-” 

She almost nodded off to sleep. Mrs. Pangborn 
kissed her. “ I have heard a good deal about 
Tom Moran—this evening,” she said, and she 
looked significantly back at the door which she 
had just closed. 

Tavia flashed a meaning look at Dorothy, and 
the moment the principal was out of the way, she 
whispered: “ What did I tell you ? ” 

“ About what? ” demanded Dorothy. 

“About Miss Olaine and Tom Moran? She 



164 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


knows something about him and she has been tell¬ 
ing Mrs. Pangborn. ,, 

“ Sh! ” warned Dorothy. “ If it was anything 
that might lead to his being found, she would have 
told me—surely.” 

“Who?” 

“ Mother Pangborn.” 

“Well, there’s something queer about it,” de¬ 
clared Tavia, nodding, “ and Miss Olaine knows” 

They put Celia to bed in Number Nineteen 
and some time after Dorothy had put out the light 
and crept in beside the little girl—Tavia was al¬ 
ready asleep in her own bed 1 —Dorothy heard a 
sound outside of the door. 

Somebody was creeping along the corridor. 
Was it some teacher on the watch for some infrac¬ 
tion of the rules? Dorothy had heard nothing of 
a “ spread-eagle ” affair on this corridor to-night. 

The step stopped. Was it at this door? For 
some moments Dorothy lay, covered to her ears, 
and listened. 

Then to her surprise she knew that the door was 
open. It was the draft from the window that as¬ 
sured her of this fact. The door was opened 
wider and a tall figure, dimly visible because of 
the light in the hall, pushed into the room. 

The lock clicked faintly as the knob was re¬ 
leased by the marauder’s hand. Dorothy was half- 
frightened at first; then she knew there could be 


ANOTHER REASON FOR FINDING TOM 165 

nobody about the building who would hurt her. 

The visitor moved toward her bed. Peeping 
carefully, but continuing to breathe in the same 
regular fashion that Tavia did, Dorothy watched 
the shadowy form draw near. 

It was a woman, for whoever it was had on a 
long woollen dressing gown. But the face and 
head were in complete shadow, and at first Doro¬ 
thy had no idea as to the person’s identity. 

The woman came close to the foot of the bed 
and stood there for several minutes. Dorothy be¬ 
gan to feel highly nervous—she really thought 
she should scream. Not that she was afraid as 
yet; but the strange actions of the Unknown- 

Ah! now she was moving nearer. She was com¬ 
ing alongside—between Tavia’s and Dorothy’s 
beds. Celia was on that side, and Dorothy was 
about to put her arm protectingly over the child. 

Then she feared the visitor would suspect that 
she was not asleep. And if she was frightened 
off, Dorothy might not learn who it was. 

So the girl kept very still, continuing to breathe 
deeply and regularly. The woman stooped closer 
and closer. It was over Celia that she bent, and 
Dorothy saw her hand steal out to draw the sheet 
farther back from the child’s face. 

Then Dorothy knew suddenly who it was. She 
recognized the long, clawlike hand; and the pecu- 



166 DOROTHY DALE'S PROMISE 


liar ring upon the third finger—the engagement 
finger—fully identified Miss Olaine! 

Dorothy had often noted that ring on the 
strange teacher’s hand. Miss Olaine had come 
creeping into the room, supposing all the girls 
to be asleep, just to see Celia Moran! 

There could be no doubt but that Miss Olaine 
had some deep interest in the Morans—in both 
Tom and Celia. Tavia had suggested such a 
thing; but really Dorothy had not believed it be¬ 
fore Mrs. Pangborn spoke as she did on this even¬ 
ing as the girls were coming up to bed with Celia. 

The queer teacher bent down and peered into 
the face of the unconscious child. A glance at 
Dorothy seemed to have satisfied her that the lat¬ 
ter was asleep. All her interest was centered in the 
little child who had run away from her hard task- 
mistress. 

She stooped lower. Dorothy saw that Miss 
Olaine’s face was tear-streaked and her eyes were 
wet. She bent near, breathing softly, and touched 
her lips to the pale forehead of little Celia. 

Then Miss Olaine rose up quickly and stole 
away from the bed again. Dorothy almost for¬ 
got to breathe steadily. She was amazed and ex¬ 
cited by the actions of the teacher who, heretofore, 
had seemed so hard-hearted. 

There certainly was what Tavia would have 
called a soft streak ” in Miss Olaine. Dorothy 


ANOTHER REASON FOR FINDING TOM 167 

was sure that she heard her sobbing as the teacher 
opened the door quietly again and stole out. 

What did it mean ? Had Miss Olaine a personal 
interest in the little girl from the “ Findling asy¬ 
lum ”—the little lost sister of Tom Moran? 

Evidently Mrs. Pangborn had told her assist¬ 
ant of the presence in the school that night of little 
Celia. Miss Olaine must have a deeper interest 
in Tom Moran than the incident of the school 
building fire two years before would suggest. 

It was a big mystery—a puzzle that Dorothy 
could not fathom, though she lay awake a long 
time trying to do so. Here was another reason 
for finding the missing man. Dorothy could not 
help pitying Miss Olaine, although the teacher had 
treated her so harshly for a fortnight or more. 

“Just as Mrs. Pangborn says, we have reason 
to excuse her harshness,” thought Dorothy, as 
usual willing and ready to excuse other people. 
“ And I’d just love to be the one to clear all the 
trouble up both for Miss Olaine and little Celia. 

“ Finding Tom Moran will bring Celia happi¬ 
ness, I am sure. Now, would finding him bring 
happiness to Rebecca Olaine, as well?” 

Early in the morning Mrs. Ann Hogan made 
her appearance at Glenwood School. But Doro¬ 
thy and Tavia had got Celia up betimes, and the 
three had had their breakfast before the regular 
breakfast hour. Tavia always knew how to “ get 


168 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


around the cook” and did about as she pleased 
with that good soul. 

“ We’ll just fill Celia up as tight as a little tick,” 
declared Tavia, “before that ogress carries her 
off to her castle again. Oh, Dorothy! do you sup¬ 
pose that horrid thing will beat poor little Celia ? ” 

“ I am sure Mrs. Pangborn will ’tend to that 
matter,” Dorothy said. 

And Mrs. Pangborn did ask Mrs. Hogan into 
her office before she had Celia brought in by the 
girls. It was evident that the dignified school 
principal had spoken much to the point to the red¬ 
faced Mrs. Hogan, for the latter was both sub¬ 
dued and nervous when Celia appeared. 

“ Celia has certainly done wrong in coming here 
to find you, Dorothy,” said Mrs. Pangborn, quiet¬ 
ly. “ I hope you said nothing to her which encour¬ 
aged her to run away ? ” 

“ Oh, no, indeed, Mrs. Pangborn! ” said Doro¬ 
thy, while Celia clung tight about her neck and 
looked fearfully at her taskmistress. 

“ Then Mrs. Hogan knows that it was just the 
child’s longing for you that brought her here.” 

“ Sure, the little plague has been talkin’ about 
Miss Dale all the time since she was wid us for 
the week-end,” grumbled Mrs. Hogan. “Come 
here, Cely. I’ll not chastise ye this time—but if 
there’s another-” 

“ I am sure there is no need of threatening 



ANOTHER REASON FOR FINDING TOM 169 

her,”interposed Mrs. Pangborn. “ Come, Celia! ” 

The little one unclasped her hands lingeringly 
from about Dorothy’s neck. 

“ Oh, I’ll find some way to see you again, Doro¬ 
thy Dale,” she whispered. “ For you know they 
all say-” 

“You be good, and I’ll come to see you,” 
declared Dorothy. 

“And so will I,” cried Tavia, almost in tears. 

“ Yes. You both come. It—it won’t be so bad 
if I can see you now and then,” sighed Celia. 
“And you’ll find Tom Moran?” 

“Have done with that fulishness now!” ex¬ 
claimed Mrs. Hogan. “ She goes on about that 
brother av hern foriver. Ye’ll niver see him 
again, my gur-r-rl.” 

“ Oh, yes, she shall! ” cried Dorothy Dale. 
“ Don’t you fear, Celia. I shall find him for you.” 

Then Mrs. Hogan bore the little one off to her 
wagon, and they drove away. It made Dorothy 
arid Tavia feel very sad to see the cute little thing 
go off in such a way. 

“ I am sure that woman abuses her! ” cried 
Tavia. 

“ Oh, we will hope not. But if only Tom 
Moran would re-appear,” sighed Dorothy, “all 
her troubles would vanish in smoke.” 



CHAPTER XX 


BACK TO DALTON 

“Dalton ! Dalton! Hurrah! ” 

“Look out—do, Tavia! You’ll be out of the 
window next.” 

“No, I won’t. That isn’t the very next thing 
I’m going to do.” 

“What is ‘next,’ then?” 

“ Going to hug you! ” declared Tavia, and pro¬ 
ceeded to put her threat into execution, smashing 
Dorothy’s hat down over her eyes, and otherwise 
adding to the general “ mussed-up condition ” re¬ 
sulting from the long journey from Glenwood to 
the town which was still Tavia’s home, and for 
which Dorothy would always have a soft spot in 
her heart. 

“ Oh, dear me! ” gasped Tavia. “ It is so de¬ 
lightsome, Doro Doodlebug, to have you really 
going home with me to stay at my house for two 
whole weeks. It is too good to be true! ” and out 
of the window her head went again, thrust forth 
far to see the station the train was approaching. 

170 


BACK TO DALTON 


171 

Dorothy made another frantic grab at her skirt. 

“ Do be careful! You’ll knock your silly head 
off on a telegraph pole.” 

“No loss, according to the opinion of all my 
friends,” sighed Tavia. “ Do you know the latest 
definition of 1 a friend ’ ? It’s a person who stands 
up for you behind your back and sits down on you 
hard when you are in his company.” 

The brakes began to grind and Tavia put on 
her hat and grabbed her hand baggage. 

“ Dear old Dalton,” whispered Dorothy, look¬ 
ing through the window with a mist in her eyes. 
“ What good times we had here when we were 
just—just children! ” 

“ Dead oodles of fun! ” quoth Tavia. “ Come 
on, Doro. You’ll get carried past the station and 
have to walk back from the water-tank.” 

But Dorothy was ready to leave in good sea¬ 
son. And when the girls got off the train who 
should meet them but three smartly-dressed young¬ 
sters who proceeded to greet them with wild yells 
and an Indian war dance performed in public on 
the station platform. 

“Oh, Johnny!” gasped Tavia, capturing her 
own young brother. 

“And Joe and Roger! ” cried Dorothy. “How 
did you boys get here ahead of us? Aren’t you 
the dears? ” 

“School closed two days earlier than usual,” 


172 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

explained Joe Dale, who was now almost as tall 
as Dorothy and' a very manly-looking fellow. 

, “ Don’t kiss me so much on the street, sister,” 

begged Roger, under his breath. “ Folks will see.” 

“And what if?” demanded Dorothy, laughing. 
^ “ They’ll think I’m a little boy yet,” said Roger. 

“And you know I’m not. 

“No. You are no longer Dorothy’s baby,” 
sighed the girl. “ She’s lost her two ‘childers’.” 

“Never mind, Sis,” sympathized Joe. “You 
were awful good to us when we were small. We 
sha’n’t forget our 1 Little Mum ’ right away; shall 
we, Rogue?” 

“ Is that what the other boys call him at 
school?” demanded Dorothy, with her arm still 
around the little fellow. 

“ Yep,” laughed Joe. “And he is a rogue. You 
ought to heard him in class the other day. Pro¬ 
fessor Brown was giving a nature lesson and he 
asked Rogue, ‘ How does a bee sting?’ and Roger 
says, ‘ Just awful! ’ What do you think of that? ” 

“A graduate of the school of experience,” com¬ 
mented Tavia. “Come on, now, folks. Joe and 
Roger are staying at our house, too—for a while.” 

She started off, arm in arm with her own 
brother, and Dorothy followed with Joe and 
Roger, the boys carrying all “ the traps,” as Johnny 
called the baggage. 

The present home of the Travers family was 


BACK TO DALTON 


173 


much different from that home as introduced to 
my readers in “ Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-day”; 
for although Mrs. Travers would never be a 
model housekeeper, the influence of Tavia was 
felt in the home even when she was away at school. 

Mr. Travers, too, had succeeded in business and 
was not only an officer in the town, and of political 
importance, but he was interested in a construction 
company, and the family was prospering. 

Mrs. Travers realized the help and stimulation 
Dorothy had given to Tavia, and she welcomed 
her daughter’s friend very warmly. Tavia “ took 
hold ” immediately and straightened up the house 
and seized the reins of government. Tavia was 
proud and she did not wish Dorothy to see just 
how “ slack ” her mother still was in many ways. 

Her own dainty room she shared with Dorothy; 
and while the latter was going about, calling on 
old friends, during the first two days, Tavia 
worked like a Trojan to make the whole house 
spick and span. 

“ It’s worth a fortune to have you around the 
house again, Daughter,” declared Mr. Travers. 

“All right, Squire,” she said, laughingly giving 
him his official title. “When I get through at 
Glenwood I reckon I’ll have to be your house¬ 
keeper altogether—eh? ” 

“And will you be content to come home and 
stay? ” he asked her, pinching the lobe of her ear. 


174 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ Why not? ” she demanded, cheerfully. 

“But if Dorothy goes to college-?” 

“ I can’t have Dorothy always. I wish I could,” 
sighed Tavia. “ But I know, as Grandma Potter 
says, ‘ Every tub must stand on its own bottom.’ 
I have got to learn to get along without Dorothy 
some time” 

But that night, when she and her chum had gone 
to bed, she suddenly put both arms around Doro¬ 
thy and hugged her— hard. 

“ What is it, dear? ” asked Dorothy, sleepily. 

“Oh, dear Dorothy Dale! ” whispered Tavia. 
“ I hope we marry twins—you and I. Then we 
needn’t be separated—much.” 

“ Marry twins ? Mercy! ” 

“ I mean, each of us a twin—twins that be¬ 
long together,” explained Tavia. “Then we 
needn’t be so far apart.” 

“ What a girl you are, Tavia! ” laughed Doro¬ 
thy, kissing her. “ Why, we won’t have to think 
about the possibility of our having a chance to be 
married-” 

“ Mercy! ” chuckled Tavia, recovering herself. 
“What an elongated sentence you’re fixin’ up.” 

“Where—where was I?” murmured Dorothy. 

“Never mind, Doro. The man who marries 
either of us will have to agree to let us live right 
next door to each other. Isn’t that right? ” 

“Oh, more than that,” agreed Dorothy. 




BACK TO DALTON 


175 


“ He’ll have to agree that we shall be together 
most of the time anyway. But don’t worry. I 
think seriously of being a she philanthropist, and 
of course no man will want to marry me then.” 

“ And I’ll be a—a policewoman—or a doctress,” 
gasped Tavia. “ Either job will drive ’em away.” 

“ And — Bob — is — coming — to-morrow,” 
yawned Dorothy, and the next minute was asleep. 

Before the boys came, however, Dorothy and 
Tavia went to see Sarah Ford. And it was on the 
way back that they had their adventure with the 
ox-cart. Of course, it was Tavia’s fault; but the 
young man driving the oxen had such a good- 
natured smile, and such red hair, and so many 
freckles- 

“No use!” Tavia declared. “I felt just like 
going up to him on the spot and calling him 
‘brother.’ I know the boys must always have 
called him ‘ Bricktop,’ or ‘Reddy’—and I’m 
Reddy’s brother, sure,” touching her own beautiful 
ruddy hair. “ How I did hate to be called ‘ Car¬ 
rots ’ when I went to Miss Ellis’s school, Doro.” 

But this isn’t the story of the ox-cart ride. The 
cart was full of hay—up to the high sides of it. 
There were a couple of bags of feed, too. 

“Oh, I ought to know him,” Tavia assured 
Dorothy. “ He’s working for my father. I re¬ 
member the old cart. They are digging away the 
top of Longreach Hill. Say! couldn’t we ride?” 



1 76 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

“Of course, Miss,” said the red-headed and 
good-natured young man. “ Whaw, Buck! Back, 
Bright! ” He snapped his long whiplash in front 
of the noses of the great black steers. They 
stopped almost instantly, and in a moment Tavia 
wriggled herself in upon the hay from behind, 
and gave her hand to Dorothy to help her in, too. 

“ Oh! isn’t this fun? ” gasped Tavia, snuggling 
down in the sweet-smelling hay, while the span of 
big beasts swung forward on the road again. 

“ We’re too big to play at such games, I s’pose,” 
said Dorothy, but her friend interrupted with: 

“Wait, for mercy’s sake, till we’re graduated. 
I’m afraid you’re going to be a regular poke be¬ 
fore long, Doro. Ugh! wasn’t that a thank-you- 
ma’am ? Just see their broad backs wag from side 
to side. Why! they’re as big as elephants! ” 

“Suppose they should run away?” murmured 
Dorothy. 

But neither believed that was really possible. 
Only, it was deliciously exciting to think of careen¬ 
ing down the hill behind the great steers, with no 
red-headed young man to snap his whip and cry: 

“Kawther, Bright! Come up, Buck!” 

On the brow of Longreach Hill the red-headed 
young man stopped the oxen. It was a steep pitch 
just before them—then a long slant to the shal¬ 
lows of the river—quite half a mile from the hill¬ 
top to the river’s edge. 


BACK TO DALTON 


1 77 


Somebody shouted and beckoned the driver of 
the oxen away before he could help the girls out 
of the cart. 

“Wait a moment, ladies,” he begged, with a 
smile, and hurried to assist in the moving of a 
heavy slab of rock. 

It was then three youths came running out of 
the grove, waving their hats and sticks. 

“Oh, look who has come !” cried Tavia, seiz¬ 
ing Dorothy’s arm. 

“Ned and Nat—and there’s Bob, of course,” 
laughed Dorothy. “ What did I tell you, lady? ” 

A dog ran behind the boys—a funny, long 
bodied, short-legged dog. He cavorted about as 
gracefully as an animated sausage. 

“Look at the funny dog?” gasped Tavia, im¬ 
mediately appearing to lose her interest in the 
three collegians. “ Is that a dachshund? Oh-o-o! ” 

Her scream was reasonable. The dog leaped 
in front of the steers’ noses. The huge creatures 
snorted, swung the cart-tongue around, and 
lurched forward down the steep descent! 

The girls could not get out then. The road was 
too rocky. The oxen were really running away. 
Their tails stiffened out over the front board of 
the cart and the cart itself bounded in the air so 
that the passengers could only cling and scream. 

They were having quite all the excitement cvew 
Tavia craved, thank you! 


CHAPTER XXI 


“that redhead’* 

u To LOOK at those beasts,” Tavia said, rue* 
fully, and some time after the event, “you 
wouldn’t think they could run at all.” 

Certainly a pair of steers tipping the scales at 
a ton and a half each did not look like racing ma¬ 
chines. But they proved to be that as they thun¬ 
dered down hill. 

Had one of them fallen on the way we shrink 
from thinking of the result—to the two girls in 
the cart. The long, lingering dog that had started 
the trouble was left far behind. The three col* 
legians who had come over the hill to surprise 
the girls, could not gain a yard in the race. As 
for “ that redhead ” who had governed the steers 
before they ran, he just missed the rear of the cart 
and he followed it down the steep grade with an 
abandon that was worthy of a better end. 

For he couldn’t catch it; and had he been able 
to, what advantage would it have given him ? 

When a span of steers wish to run away, and 
decide upon running away, and really get into ac* 
178 


THAT REDHEAD 


179 


tion, nothing but a ten-foot stone wall will stop 
them. And there was no wall at hand. 

The great wheels bounced and the cart threat¬ 
ened to turn over at every revolution of the 
wheels; Tavia screamed intermittently; Dorothy 
held on grimly and hoped for the best. 

The steers kept right on in a desperately grim 
way, their tails still stiffened. They reached the 
bottom of the hill and were at the very verge of 
the sloping bank into the shallows of the river. 

A suicidal mania seemed to have gained pos¬ 
session of their bovine minds. They cared noth¬ 
ing for themselves, for the wagon, or for the 
passengers in that wagon. Into the river they 
plunged. The wabbling cart rolled after them 
until the water rose more than hub high. 

And then the oxen halted abruptly, both low¬ 
ered their noses a little, and both began to drink! 

“ Such excitement over an old drink of water! ” 
gasped Tavia, and then fell completely into the 
hay and could not rise for laughing. 

“ Do—do you suppose they ran down here— 
like that —just to get a drink?” demanded Doro¬ 
thy. “ Why—why I was scared almost to death! ” 

“ Me, too; we could have been killed just as 
easy, whether the oxen were murderously inclined 
or as playful as kittens. Ugh! that redhead! ” 

“ It wasn’t his fault,” said Dorothy. 

“ He never should have left us alone with them. ” 


180 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

It was that dog did it,” declared Dorothy. 

“ Don’t matter who did it. The dog was funny 
enough looking to scare ’em into fits,” giggled 
Tavia. “ Here he comes again. Oh, I hope the 
oxen don’t see him.” 

“ Yet you blame the young man with the—light 
hair, hesitated Dorothy. “ Here he comes now. ” 

The excited young man with the flame-colored 
tresses was ahead of the three collegians. He 
leaped right into the water and called to the girls 
to come to the back of the cart. 

“ ’Tis no knowing when them ugly bastes will 
take it inter their heads to start ag’in,” he de¬ 
clared, holding his strong arms to Dorothy. “ Lem- 
me carry ye ashore out o’ harm’s way, Miss.” 

Dorothy trusted herself to him at once. But 
the boys were not to be outdone in this act of gal- 
lantry—at least, one of them was not. Bob Niles 
rushed right into the water and grabbed Tavia, 
whether she wanted to be “ rescued ” or not. 

“ Bob > m y dear boy,” said Tavia, in her most 
grown-up manner, “don’t stub your poor little 
piggy-wiggies and send us both splash into the 
water. That would be too ridiculous.” 

“I shall bear you safely ashore, Tavia_no 

fear, he grunted. “Whew! You’ve been putting 
onjlesh, I declare, since New Year’s,” he added. 

“Pounds and pounds,” she assured him. “ Now, 
up the bank, little boy.” 


THAT REDHEAD 


181 


Dorothy was already deposited in safety and 
her cousins were taking their turns in “ saluting 
her on both cheeks; ” but when Bob tried to take 
toll from Tavia in that way she backed off, threat¬ 
ening him with an upraised hand. 

“ You are no cousin—make no mistake on that 
point, sir,” she declared. 

“ Huh! I ought to have some reward for 
saving you from a watery grave,” said Bob, 
sheepishly. 

“ Charge it, please,” lisped Tavia. “ There are 
some debts I never propose to pay till I get ready.” 

But she, like Dorothy, was unfeignedly glad to 
see the three young men again. While they chat¬ 
tered with Ned, and Nat, and Bob, the red-haired 
young man got his oxen and the cart out of the 
river and guided the animals back toward the hill. 

There came on a dog-trot from the scene of the 
excavating operations a fat, puffy man, who 
snatched the whip out of redhead’s hand and pro¬ 
ceeded to administer a tongue lashing, part of 
which the girls and their companions overheard. 

“Oh I he doesn’t deserve that,” said Dorothy, 
mildly. “ It wasn’t his fault.” 

“He shouldn’t have left us alone in the cart,” 
pouted Tavia. “That’s Mr. Simpson, one of 
father’s foremen. Let him be. A scolding never 
killed anybody yet—otherwise, how would I have 
survived Olaine this term ? ” 


182 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


Dorothy was not quite satisfied, but she was 
overborne by her companions to go back to town 
and so did not see the end of the controversy be¬ 
tween the foreman and “That Redhead” as Ta- 
via insisted on calling the ox-team driver. Besides, 
Tavia acknowledged a cut she had received on 
her arm by being banged about in the ox-cart. 

“ You’d better hurry home and put some disin¬ 
fectant on it,” advised Nat, who always had seri¬ 
ous interest in Tavia’s well-being. 

“ Huh! ” said Tavia, hotly, “ I’m not a kitchen 
sink, I hope. If you mean antiseptic, say so.” 

“ Wow! ” cried Ned. “ Our Tavia has become 
a purist.” 

“Oh, dear, that’s worse!” declared Tavia. 
“ Come on, Doro, I don’t like these boys any more. 
I am going to become a man-hater, anyway, I 

think. They’re always underfoot-Oh! what 

a cute dog you’ve got, Ned.” 

“ ’Taint mine,” said Ned. “ It’s Nat’s. 

“ But he seems a long way from his head to his 
tail for a short-legged beast,” observed Dorothy. 

“That’s some dog, let me tell you,” Nat de¬ 
clared, stoutly. “ He’s a real German dachshund.” 

“ I thought he looked like an animated sausage,” 
declared Tavia, stooping to pet the animal. The 
creature stood very still while she patted his sleek 
coat, only blinking his big, soft brown eyes. 



“THAT REDHEAD” 183 

“He isn’t very sociable, I don’t think,” grum< 
bled Tavia. 

Of course he is,” said Nat. “He’s as good- 
natured as he can be.” 

How are you going to tell? He doesn’t wag 
his tail when you pat him on the head—see there! ” 

“Aw, give him time,” laughed Ned. “Don’t 
you know it takes a dachshund several minutes to 
transmit ecstacy along the line to the terminus? ” 

They went along to Tavia’s house gaily. The 
boys remained to supper, and it was only after 
that comfortable meal, and while the boys were in 
Mr. Travers’ “office,” where he smoked his even¬ 
ing pipe, the girls being busy clearing the table 
and washing dishes, that Nat sang out: 

“ Hi, Doro! did you hear about your redhead? ” 

“ What about him? ” cried Dorothy and Tavia. 

“ Mr. Travers says he got the G. B. after let¬ 
ting those oxen run away.” 

“ Oh, never I ” cried Tavia, coming to the door. 

“ You were sore on him yourself, Tavia,” re¬ 
minded Bob Niles. 

“ But you didn’t discharge him, Father? ” ques¬ 
tioned the tender-hearted girl. 

“ No. It was Simpson. But I could not very 
well interfere,” said Mr. Travers. 

“Why not? It wasn’t fair! ” urged Tavia. 

“ I am sure Simpson knows best. Though I 
liked Tom,” said her father. “ I cannot interfere 


184 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


between the foreman and the men. If I did I’d 
soon have neither overseers nor workmen, but a 
strike on my hands,” and he laughed. 

“ I think it is too bad, sir,” said Dorothy, grave- 
were run away with.” 

ly. “ Really, it was not his fault at all that we 
“He left you alone with the beasts,” Ned de¬ 
clared. 

“He was called by those other men to help,” 
Tavia retorted. 

“Well, he’s gone, I fear,” said Mr. Travers, 
shaking his head. 

“ Not out of town, father? ” 

“ I reckon so. Tom comes and goes. He is a 
good man, although he’s young; but he’s unset¬ 
tled. Lots of these workmen are. They go from 
place to place. He is fit to take charge himself, I 
believe, of a steel construction gang; but, as the 
boys say, ‘something got his goat.’ He doesn’t 
work at his trade any more. It is a dangerous 

trade, and he probably had an accident-” 

“ Steel construction—bridge building, do you 
mean, sir?” asked Dorothy, suddenly. 

“Why, yes—I suppose so.” 

“And he is red-haired!” gasped Dorothy. 
“Oh, what’s his name, Mr. Travers?” 

“Tom Moran; he’s worked for me before—” 
“ Oh, Doro! ” cried Tavia. 

“ Oh, Tavia! ” echoed Dorothy. 



CHAPTER XXII 


ON THE TRAIL 

“ It seems almost impossible that a man with 
such a red head could so completely drop out of 
sight,’’ sighed Tavia the next day. 

The boys had just combed Dalton “with a 
fine-toothed comb ” for the elusive Tom Moran, 
and had bagged nothing. He had gone—vamoosed 

disappeared—winked out; all these synonyms 
were Tavia’s. The girls had discussed the disap¬ 
pearance until there seemed nothing more to be 
said. 

“ We don’t really know that he was Celia’s big 
brother,” said Dorothy, reflectively. “But it 
seems very probable. Even your father knew that 
he was a bridge builder.” 

“But we didn’t,” snapped Tavia. “Who ex¬ 
pected to find a structural ironworker driving a 
yoke of steers ? ” 

“And such steers,” sighed Dorothy, for she had 
scarcely gotten over the scare of that perilous ride. 

Everybody about town knew by this time that 
185 


i86 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


the red-haired young man who had worked in 
Simpson’s gang was wanted by Dorothy Dale. 
Dorothy had more friends in Dalton than any¬ 
where else. Indeed, she could well claim every re¬ 
spectable member of the community, save the nurs¬ 
ing babies, as her own particular friend. 

With so many people on the lookout for a trace 
of Tom Moran, therefore, it was no wonder that 
Dorothy and her friends were running down pos¬ 
sible clues all day long. 

The second morning news came from a farmer 
out on the Fountainville Road. Ned and Nat had 
come down to Dalton in their Firebird, and they 
got the motorcar out of the garage at once and 
brought it around to give the girls a ride to 
Farmer Prater’s house. 

) “ He’s been losing chickens,” said Ned, as they 

all scrambled in. “And he telephoned in some¬ 
thing about a red-headed man he had hired, 
named Moran, having a fight in the night with a 
band of chicken thieves in an automobile. What do 
you know about that? ” 

“ Sounds crazy enough,” said Tavia, tartly. 

“All right. Your father’s sent a constable out 
to see about it, just the same. And there aren’t 
two red-headed men named Moran wandering 
about the county, I am sure.” 

“ But I don’t believe Celia’s brother would rob 
a henroost,” said Dorothy. 


ON THE TRAIL " 187 

“ Oh, fudge! ” exclaimed Nat. “ Listen to the 
girl ? Who said he did? ” 

“Well! wasn’t there something about chicken 
stealing in what Ned said? Oh! I almost lost my 
hat that time. What a jolty road.” 

“ Look out or you’ll lose your name and number 
both on this stretch of highway. Can’t the old 
Firebird spin some?” 

“Such flowers of rhetoric,” sighed Tavia. 
“ * Spin some ’ is beautiful.” 

“Lots you know about flowers of any kind, 
Miss Travers,” teased Nat. 

“ I know all about flowers—especially of 
speech,” returned Tavia, tossing her head. “ I 
can even tell you the favorite flowers of the vari¬ 
ous States and countries-” 

“ England? ” shouted Nat. 

“ Primroses,” returned Tavia, promptly, unwill¬ 
ing to be caught. 

“ France? ” questioned Bob. 

“ Lilies.” 

“Scotland?” asked Dorothy, laughing. 

“ Ought to be a beard of oats, but it’s the 
thistle,” said Tavia, promptly. 

“Ireland?” demanded Ned, without turning 
from his steering wheel. 

“ Shamrock, of course.” 

“ Got you! ” ejaculated Nat. “ What's Spain’s 
favorite? ” 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


188 

’“Oh—oh—oh- Bulrushes, I s’pect,” said 

Tavia, having the words jolted out of her. “ Bull¬ 
fights, anyway. Dear, dear me! we might as well 
travel over plowed ground.” 

They struck a better automobile road on the 
Fountainville turnpike, and before long they came 
in sight of Farmer Prater’s house. Oddly enough 
there was a gray and yellow automobile under one 
of the farmer’s sheds. 

The farmer was in high fettle, it proved, and 
willing enough to talk about the raid the night be¬ 
fore on his pens of Rhode Island reds. 

“ Jefers pelters! ” he chortled. “ I got me pul¬ 
lets back and the ortermerbile ter boot. D’ye see 
it? That’s what the raskils come in.” 

“ Not the red-headed man? ” demanded Tavia. 

“ Who said anything about a red headed- 

Oh! you mean Tom Moran?” asked Mr. Prater. 
“ Why, he warn’t with ’em. If it hadn’t been for 
him them raskils would ha’ got erway with my pul¬ 
lets—ya-as, sir-ree-sir! ” 

“ Where is Tom?” demanded Dorothy. 

But Mr. Prater had to tell the story in his own 
way. And it was an exciting one—to him! He 
had been awakened in the early hours of the 
morning and had seen an automobile standing in 
the road. Then he heard a squawking in the chick¬ 
en pens. He had valuable feathered stock, and he 
got up in a hurry to learn what was afoot. 




ON THE TRAIL 


189 


But the thieves would have gotten well away 
with their bags of feathered loot had it not been 
for Tom Moran, who was sleeping for the night 
in Farmer Prater’s barn. 

“That red-headed feller is as smart as a steel 
trap,” said the farmer, admiringly. “I’ve been 
at him every time I’m in Dalton to come an’ work 
for me. But he wouldn’t.” 

“ What did he do? ” asked Dorothy, interested 
for more reasons than one in any account of Tom 
Moran. 

“ Why, he jumped out of the hay, got ahead of 
the thieves, and leaped into their merchine before 
they reached it. It’s a self-starter—d’ye see? So 
he jest teched up the engine button, and started the 
merchine to traveling. Them fellers couldn’t git 
aboard, and they had to drop the sacks and run. I 
was right behind ’em with my gun, ye see, and I’d 
peppered ’em with rock salt if they hadn’t quit as 
they did- Ya-as, sir-ree-sir! ” 

“And where did Tom go?” queried Tavia, 
breathlessly. 

“ Why, he brought the machine back, eat his 
breakfast, and went on his way. He didn’t say 
where he was goin’. I’ll wait for the owner of the 
ortermobile to show up an’ explain about his car, 
I reckon. Ain’t no license number on it.” 

So that settled this trace of Tom Moran. He 
had disappeared again. Nobody near Mr. Prater 



190 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

had observed the red-headed man when he left for 
parts unknown. The girls and their friends had 
lots of fun scouring the neighboring country in the 
Firebird; but the young man whom Dorothy Dale 
wished to see so very much was as elusive as a 
will-o’-the-wisp! 

And when they got back to town there was a 
letter about the very man himself addressed to 
the War Cry office, in regard to the advertisement 
that Dorothy had caused to be printed in that pa¬ 
per. The letter had gone to Glenwood and been 
forwarded to Dalton on Dorothy’s trail. 

The letter was written on dirty paper and in a 
handwriting that showed the writer to be a very 
ignorant person. And it was actually mailed in 
Dalton! The girls read it eagerly. 

“ If you want to knos bout Tom Moran I can 
tell you all you want to knos. but I got a be paid 
for what I knos. hes a many mils from here, but 
I can find him if its mad wuth my wile. So no 
mor at present Well wisher, p. s.—rite me at 
Dalton N. York, name john Smith. lie get it from 
genl dlivry.” 

“Now, never in the world did that red-haired 
young man write such a letter, Doro!” cried 
Tavia. 

t “ Of course not. It is some bad person who saw 


ON THE TRAIL 


191 

the advertisement and thinks that some money is 
to be made out of poor Celia’s brother.” 

“ And this awful scrawl was written when Tom 
was right here in town.” 

“ Certainly,” agreed Dorothy. 

“ Yet the writer says he is 4 a many mils from 
here.’ ” 

“ That is why we may be sure that the person 
writing to me has a very bad mind and is trying to 
get money. I am sure Tom Moran never saw the 
notice in the War Cry and that he knows nothing 
about this letter,” repeated Dorothy. 

“ Dear me! to be so close on the trail of that 
redhead—and then to lose him,” Tavia said 
despairingly. 

“ Perhaps this person who wrote the letter 
knows where he is now. Yes, it looks reasonable,” 
said Dorothy, reflectively. “You see, believing 
as he does that somebody will pay money to find 
Tom Moran, he will likely keep in touch with 
Celia’s brother.” 

“ I see! ” cried Tavia. “ I see what you are 
driving at. Aren’t you smart, Doro Dale? The 
way to do, then, is for us to find this John 
Smith- But how will you do it? ” 

“ How? ” 

“ Of course that isn’t his name. I don’t be¬ 
lieve there is a John Smith in Dalton.” 

“ Perhaps not. Although John Smiths aren’t 



192 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

uncommon,” laughed Dorothy. “ But we know 
that is the name in which he’ll ask for his mail. 
Now, why not keep watch-” 

“ Better than that!” gasped Tavia. “Let’s 
tell Mr. Somes, the postmaster, and have him set 
a watch upon whoever gets a letter for John 
Smith.” 

“ But where’ll he get a letter—if I don’t write 
him ? ” demanded Dorothy. 

“Of course, you’ll write him. Write now. 
Make him think you are going to ‘bite’ on his 
offer.” 

“ But I don’t intend to pay any great sum for 
finding Tom Moran—though I’d be willing to if I 
had it.” 

“We can fool him; can’t we?” demanded Ta¬ 
via. “ He is evidently trying to over-reach Tom 
and you both. Let the biter be bitten,” said Ta¬ 
via, gaily. “ Come on, Doro! Write the letter.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


ALMOST CAUGHT 

“My!” exclaimed Tavia, later. “There is a 
whole lot to making up a plot; isn’t there? And 
how wise you are, Doro! ” 

“ But you see, my child, you can’t go ahead with 
this scheme as you first mapped it out,” observed 
Dorothy, drily. 

“Oh, I see,” agreed her friend. “Mr. Somes 
can’t arrest the man who calls himself ‘John 
Smith.’” 

“ Of course not. Nor can anybody else arrest 
him. He has committed no crime in trying to get 
money for his information about Tom Moran.” 

“ But how will you fix him ? ” 

“ You see, if Mr. Somes will allow the clerk at 
the general delivery window of the post-office to 
make some signal when a person comes to call for 
this letter I have written, we will have somebody 
on the watch to follow John Smith. Then we’l) 
find out who he is-” 

“ If it is a ‘ he,’ ” interposed Tavia. 

i93 



*94 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

“ Of course it is,” returned her friend. “ It’s a' 
man’s handwriting. And a very bad, ignorant man, 
I am afraid.” 

“ He doesn’t belong to Dalton, then,” declared 
Tavia, earnestly. “ Since the liquor crusade, when 
the saloons were all shut, we haven’t had many 
men of bad character in Dalton.” 

“ That’s right,” agreed Dorothy. “ But you see, 
there is always a 4 floating population.’ Work such 
as your father’s company is doing brings in irre¬ 
sponsible men from outside. They have no inter¬ 
est in the fair name of Dalton, so we mustn’t be 
surprised if they misbehave,” said sensible Dor¬ 
othy. 

“ But who is going to watch all the time at the 
post-office?” demanded Tavia. 

“The window for the delivery of letters is 
open from eight till eight. We’ll get the boys to 
help us take turns. There are you and me, Johnny, 
Joe and Roger—even Roger isn’t too little to fol¬ 
low the man and find out where he lives,” said 
Dorothy, briskly. “Then we can pull my cous¬ 
ins, and Bob Niles, and Abe Perriton into it. 

That makes nine of us. Nine in twelve hours- 

What does nine in twelve make, Tavia ? ” 

“One hour and twenty minutes each— about. 
Oh, all right! ” exclaimed Tavia. “ Of course we 
can watch. But the question is: Will that do any 
good? ” 


ALMOST CAUGHT 


195 


Dorothy would not listen to any croaking. 
She wrote the decoy letter, and the two girls went 
down town and saw Mr. Somes privately. He 
knew both Tavia’s father and Major Dale; and 
when the girls from Glenwood disclosed to the 
postmaster just why they wished to find Tom 
Moran, and all about Celia, and the letter Dor¬ 
othy had received from “John Smith,” he agreed 
to help them. 

It was arranged, however, that the letter should 
not be put in the mail until the following morning, 
so that the girls might fully arrange the “ watch- 
and-watch ” on the general delivery letter win¬ 
dow. 

Their boy friends fell into the scheme with 
alacrity. Dorothy and Tavia did not explain 
entirely their interest in Tom Moran, nor why 
there was such a hue and cry after that red-haired 
young man; but- 

“ It doesn’t matter,” said one of the lads, cheer¬ 
fully. “ If Dot says she wants to find the chap— 
and this fellow who wrote the bum letter—we’ll 
do just what she says. Dot’s all right, you know, 
fellows! ” 

But that very morning there came word over 
thenelephone to Abe Perriton’s house that started 
the excitement in a new quarter. A man named 
Polk, who ran a sawmill on Upper Creek, asked 
Mr. Perriton to hire several men in Dalton if he 



ig6 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


could, as he had work that must be rushed and 
he needed an extra force of hands. 

“And I haven’t been able to hire a soul up 
here, except Tom Moran, who came along last 
night. And I’m afraid he won’t stay. He’ll not 
promise to.” 

“Here, Abe,” said Mr. Perriton. “Didn’t I 
hear something about your friends wanting to 
see Tom Moran? He’s up to Polk’s mill.” 

That was enough. The boys started with the 
Firebird inside of ten minutes picking up Dorothy 
and Tavia on the way. But nobody thought to 
telephone to the mill man to ask him to hold the 
red-haired man until the Firebird party arrived. 

It was over another rough road to Polk’s mill 
on Upper Creek. “Dear, dear,” complained 
Tavia, “ I am half in doubt whether the geog¬ 
raphers have got it right. Perhaps the world isn’t 
round. I don’t see how it can be when it is so 
awful bumpy! ” 

“ You feel like Nat did, I guess,” chuckled Ned. 
“ That was then my lovely brother was a whole 
lot younger than he is now—hey, Nat?” 

“What’s the burn?” asked Nathaniel White, 
Esquire. 

“ ’Member when Miss Baker put the poser to 
you in intermediate school? ’Member about it, 
boy ? ” 

“ Oh, that’s an old one,” grunted Nat. 


ALMOST CAUGHT 197 

Lets hear it—do,” cried Dorothy. “Did 
Nattie miss his lesson? ” 

“He wasn’t paying much attention, I reckon,” 
said Ned, just scaling a corner post as they took 
a turn, and scaring a squawking flock of hens al- 
imost into nervous prosperity,” as Tavia called 
it. “ Miss Baker was giving us fits in the physical 
geography line. She snaps one at Nat: 

What’s the shape of the earth, Nathaniel?’ 

“ ‘ Oh! Ugh-huh? Round,’ says Nat, just bare¬ 
ly waking up. 

“‘How do you know it’s round 1 ?’ demands 
Miss Baker. 

“‘All right,’ says Nat. ‘It’s square, then. I 
don’t mean to argue about it! ’” 

“ Aw, I never! ” cried Nat, as the others shouted 
their appreciation of the story. “That’s just one 
of Ned’s yarns.” 

With similar “ carryings-on ” they lightened the 
rough way to the sawmill camp. The last mile 
they had to walk, leaving the Firebird at a farm¬ 
er’s place. There was no such thing as taking the 
automobile to the camp. 

“I hope Tom Moran is here,” said Dorothy, 
again and again, to her friend, Tavia. “But I 
feel as though we were due to have another dis¬ 
appointment.” 

“ Oh, I hope not,” groaned Tavia. 

The boys would not keep to the wood road, but 


198 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

scrambled over stumps and brambles, raising the 
hue and cry after timid rabbits, starting an old 
cock partridge now and then, and chasing chip¬ 
munks along the fences. 

“ I’d love to have a woodchuck bake,” Abe 
Perriton said. “ The kids say they’ve found sev¬ 
eral woodchuck holes up near the Rouse place.” 

“Joe and Roger, you mean?” asked Dorothy, 
to whom Abe was speaking. 

“And Octavia’s brother Jack. Yes. Those 
kids would find woodchucks if there were any in 
the county. M-m-m! did you ever eat woodchuck, 
Tavia?” 

“ Sure I did. But I never expect to enjoy a 
woodchuck bake again. I’m grown up now,” 
called Tavia, from her position in the lead with 
Bob Niles. 

“ If the kids really have found the holes—and 
Mr. Woodchuck is home,” said Abe, “we might 
have a picnic, even if it is cold weather—say day 
after to-morrow.” 

“Nice weather for a picnic,” laughed Dorothy. 
“See! there’s still some snow in the fence cor¬ 
ners.” 

“And the groundhogs will be as poor as Job’s 
turkey,” said Tavia, who understood about such 
things better, even, than a boy. 

“ Hurrah! there’s the mill,” shouted Nat. 

The whine of the saw as it cut through a log 


ALMOST CAUGHT 


199 

floated down to them through the aisles of the 
wood. They hurried to reach their destination. 

The saw was flying and the few men about the 
mill were working speedily. Mr. Polk himself,, 
whom they knew by sight, was dragging a huge 
log out of the water by the aid of a chain and a 
small engine. But nowhere in sight was “that 
redhead.” 

Hello, Abe Perriton!” shouted the master 
of the mill. u Your father going to send that 
gang ? Or are you huskies—and the little ladies— 
goin’ to roll logs for me?” 

“ I guess father will send along men. But we’ll 
roll that one for you, Mr. Polk,” laughed Abe, as 
the huge log came up the runway to the mill. 

The boys grabbed canthooks and helped put 
the log in place upon the carriage. The girls 
looked on with interest, for the working of a saw¬ 
mill with a disk-saw of this size is not uninteresting. 

“ But that log’s got a hollow in it, Mr. Polk,” 
advised Tavia, the sharp-eyed. 

“ I know it, Miss. But the grain of the wood’s 
so straight, and the hollow’s so small, that I be¬ 
lieve we’re going to get some mighty fine planks 
out of it, just the same,” replied the sawyer. 

“Ask him about Tom Moran,” begged Dor- 
othy, sotto-voce. 

“ Just wait till he gets this log on the carriage. 
Now it goes! ” exclaimed the interested Tavia. 


200 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


The saw struck the hollow place the first clip, 
the outside slab was cut off, and out of the hollow 
flopped something that made the girls scream. 

“ A snake! ” gasped Dorothy. 

“ Maybe it’s an eel,” said Tavia. 

But quick-eyed Nat jumped for it and held up 
the flopping creature. It was a beautiful brook 
trout more than two feet long. 

“ Great find, boy! ” declared Mr. Polk. “ The 
law ain’t off until April first; but I reckon that’s 
your kill.” 

“We’ll have the picnic, anyway! ” laughed Bob 
Niles. “ I bet trout baked in the ashes beats wood¬ 
chuck all to pieces! ” 

Dorothy had come close to the sawyer now 
and tapped him on the arm. 

“ Oh, sir! ” she exclaimed. “ Isn’t Tom Moran 
here with you?” 

Polk’s face clouded. “The red-haired rascal 
wouldn’t stay. He don’t like sawmill work. He 
worked for me yesterday and started in this morn¬ 
ing; but an hour before you came he lit out.” 

u Gone? ” gasped Dorothy. 

“ Yes, ma’am! ” 

“ And you don’t know where he’s gone? ” broke 
in Tavia. 

“ Couldn’t tell ye,” said Polk. “ He lit out— 
walkin’—toward Pollinary. But that’s twenty 
mile from here. Dunno as he’ll go that far.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


“ALIAS JOHN SMITH” 

The wood smoke curled up in a spiral from 
the side of a big, rotting log where Nat had set¬ 
tled on the camp. The Firebird stood beside the 
narrow road with the lunch board spread, and 
Ned and Abe were diligently making ready the 
picnic repast, of which the seven pound trout and 
a half-peck of potatoes, bought of a farmer, were 
the main viands. 

But how good it all did smell! The girls had 
appetites equal to the boys’ own. And although 
Dorothy and Tavia were deeply disappointed in 
their search for Tom Moran, they “threw aside 
carking care,” as Nat said, for the time being. 

“ For there is another day coming, Dot! ” he 
declared. “ A man with a head as red as that fel¬ 
low’s cannot be lost for long—no, indeed! ” 

“ Cheerful soul, is Nattie,” jollied Ned. “He 
always was hopeful. ’Member when you were 
fishing in the bathtub that time, kid? ” 

“ What time ? ” demanded his brother, suspect¬ 
ing one of Edward’s jokes. 

201 


202 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ You know—when mother asked you what you 
expected to catch? And says you: ‘ Pollyglubs.’ 

44 4 What is a pollyglub?’ says the mater, and 
you handed her back a hot one. 

“ Oh, I did?” grunted Nat. “ Don’t remember 
it. What did I say?” 

“ Why, says you: 4 Don’t know; I haven’t caught 
one yet.’ Oh, you couldn’t beat Nattie for hope¬ 
fulness. He was one sanguine kid,” laughed Ned. 
Bob slapped Nat on the back at that and rolled 
him over on a dry bit of sod where they wrestled 
for a few minutes—until Ned yelled for help at 
the campfire. Soon all six of the young folk were 
busy discussing the luncheon. 

“ This is really the nicest meal I’ve eaten since 
we were in camp—eh, Doro? ” asked Tavia. 

44 1 believe you, dear,” admitted her friend. 

But Dorothy could not be very enthusiastic. Her 
disappointment over missing Tom Moran was 
keen. And she was not much fun that night when 
the boys all came over to Tavia’s for a 44 sing” 
and a general good time. Her mind was fixed 
upon the watch-and-watch they were to keep upon 
the general delivery window of the post-office the 
next day. 

Joe demanded the privilege of being the first 
44 man on duty.” He was deeply interested in the 
Tom Moran conspiracy, as he insisted upon calling 
it because he admired Dorothy so, and because 


“ ALIAS JOHN SMiTH ” 203 

his boyish heart and sense of chivalry had been 
touched by the story of little Celia, “the find- 
ling.” 

“ If this chap who’s written to you, Doro,” said 
Joe, with decided appreciation of the situation, 
“is in communication with Tom Moran, maybe 
we can catch Celia’s brother before he gets any 
farther away from Dalton.” 

“ But he’s going farther away all the time, it 
seems,” sighed Dorothy. “ And up there beyond 
Polk’s mill is a wild country.” 

Young Joe went off after an early breakfast in 
Tavia’s kitchen, full of importance. He was to 
stand guard at the post-office window until ten 
o’clock, or until one of the other boys, or Dorothy 
or Tavia, relieved him. 

The signal agreed upon with the mail-clerk was 
a newspaper dropped through the opening after 
the person calling for“ John Smith’s ’’letter turned 
away. Joe served his time patiently, and nothing 
happened. Nat White lounged down, entered the 
post-office corridor, tweaked Joe’s ear, and sent 
him off about his business. 

“Johnny Travers and Rogue are waiting for 
you to go woodchucking,” Nat told his cousin. 

“ Off with you ! ** 

Dorothy took her own luncheon early, and drift¬ 
ed into the post-office about one o’clock Tavia, 
was to join her later. 


204 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“Never did think you’d come,” groaned Nat. 
“ I’m starved to death.” 

“ No sign of the Mystery yet? ” breathed Dor¬ 
othy. 

“ Nary a sign. I’m off! Good luck.” 

And if finding the mysterious “John Smith” 
was sure enough good luck, Dorothy could con¬ 
sider herself fortunate within half on hour. A 
lanky, hesitating youth approached the general 
delivery window. Twice he stepped back and al¬ 
lowed other people to get in front of him. Some¬ 
how Dorothy’s attention was particularly attracted 
to the nondescript’s face. 

He might have been seventeen—perhaps older. 
There was a little yellow fuzz on his cheeks and 
chin, showing that his blonde beard was sprouting 
early. He was possessed of sharp features and 
a high and narrow forehead, prominent, watery 
blue eyes, and scarcely a vestige of eyebrows or 
lashes. This lack in the upper part of his face 
gave him a blank appearance—like the end wall 
of a house with two shutterless windows in it. 

Below his countenance was quite as unattrac¬ 
tive. In the first place he had a retreating, weak 
chin, prominent upper teeth, and an enormous 
Adam’s apple. He was evidently nervous, or bash¬ 
ful. Dorothy saw him swallow several times be* 
fore he could speak to the clerk inside the window. 


“ ALIAS JOHN SMITH 


r And when he swallowed, that bunch in his throat 
went up and down in a most ridiculous way. 

“What did you say the name was?” Dorothy 
heard the mail clerk ask. 

The shambling youth repeated it: “John 
Smith. Mis-ter John Smith. Yes, sir. Thank 
ye, sir. 

The boy backed away with something white 
in his hand which Dorothy knew to be her letter. 
A newspaper, pushed through the window, flut¬ 
tered to the floor of the corridor. But Dorothy 
was already going out of the post-office. 

The youth followed her out. The letter 
'had been put away somewhere in his skimpy 
clothing; for it must be admitted that not a gar¬ 
ment visible on the stranger seemed to fit him. 

Either his trousers, and coat, and vest, had been 
intended for a much smaller youth, or he was 
growing so fast that he could not wear a suit out 
before wrists, ankles, and neck were thrust 
through their several openings in the clothes in a 
most ridiculous fashion. 

“ I never saw such a funny-looking creature,” 
Dorothy told herself, as she watched the boy from 
across the street. “And I don’t remember ever 
having seen him in Dalton before. He looks ig¬ 
norant enough to have written that letter I re¬ 
ceived, too; and yet—there is an innocent look 
about his face. I wonder if he really has intelli- 


206 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


gence enough to fix up any scheme to make money 
out of those who wish to find Tom Moran? ” 

The boy dawdled along the street and Dorothy 
walked on the other side, looking into shop win¬ 
dows now and then, but unfailing in her vigilance. 
She did not let the shambling youth out of her 
line of vision; and especially was she watchful 
when he passed close to any other person. 

Nobody spoke to him; he seemed quite unknown 
in the town. He drifted down toward the rail¬ 
road yards where—in two or three mean streets—* 
the poorer and most shiftless denizens of Dalton 
resided. 

Down here was an open lot on which much of 
the refuse of the town was dumped to fill in a 
yawning gully. Ashes and piles of cans, and boxes 
and the like, offered to the poorer children a play¬ 
ground most amusing, if not conducive to health. 
At one corner two or three shacks—incongruous 
huts they were—had been constructed. Certain 
•squatters evidently had taken up their abode in 
these, despite the still cool weather. 

Lengths of rusty stovepipes were thrust through 
the side walls of these huts. The roofs were made 
of oil cans, unsoldered, and beaten flat, the sheets* 
overlapping one another. Doors wabbled on 
leather hinges. A broken window was plugged up 
with an old silk hat. 

Dorothy felt a shiver as she ventured further 



“ l’ D VERY much like to know your name, 
Dorothy Dale’s Promise. 


SAJD DOROTHY. 

Page 207 . 






















“ ALIAS JOHN SMITH ” 207 

into the bad section of the town; but she was de¬ 
termined to learn something more of the boy who 
had received the letter addressed to “ John Smith ” 
from the post-office. 

He crossed the open lot, aiming without doubt 
for the squalid huts. Dorothy quickened her 
steps and remained on the sidewalk, following the 
line of the open square. She reached the corner 
nearest to the huts just as the youth strolled out 
of the open gully and to the side of the nearest 
shack. 

There, sitting upon an overturned tub, bare¬ 
footed, and dressed in coarse petticoat and blouse, 
was a hatless woman picking over a mess of greens 
in a rusty dishpan. 

“ Wa-al! I wanter know, Poke! ” she drawled, 
looking up at the shambling youth. “Y’don’t 
mean ter say you’ve got back? ” 

“Ye din’t tell me ter run,” said the young fel¬ 
low, dropping down upon a broken box beside her. 

“ Wal! Plague take it I you air the laziest- 

Good afternoon, Ma’am! was you wantin’ any¬ 
thing?” 

This last question was directed at Dorothy. 
The girl, quite thoughtless in her excitement, had 
crossed the street and stood before the woman and 
the youth. 

“ I—I-Oh! I’d very much like to know your 

name,” said Dorothy, rather confused. 




208 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“Huh? Y’ got some pertic’lar reason for 
findin’ out, Miss ? ” 

“ Perhaps,” and Dorothy began to look at the 
woman more calmly. 

* “ I ain’t none ashamed of it. It’s Daggett. Jane 

Daggett. And this is my boy, Poke Daggett.” 

“You never were called Smith, I suppose?” 
queried Dorothy, quickly. 

“Smith?” the woman exclaimed, and although 
she did not change color—she was too sallow for 
that—her little black eyes brightened perceptibly. 
“ No. I can’t say I ever was. Daggett was my 
secon’ husban’; but I never married a Smith, an’ 
my own name—’fore I married a-tall—was Blink- 
ensopp. Now, air you satisfied, Miss?” 

“ Not wholly,” Dorothy said, with courage. “ If 
your name is not Smith, and your son’s name is 
not Smith, why did he just get a letter from the 
post-office addressed to Mr. John Smith?” 

The boy, Poke, jumped; indeed, he almost fell 
off the box. His mother pinched him sharply in 
the leg. 

“ Dunno what ye mean, lady,” she whined. 
“ Poke ain’t never got a letter in his life—I don’t 
believe. Has you, Poke? ” 

“ I—I never! ” gasped Poke, the lie showing 
plainly in his face. 

“ You have a letter somewhere in your pocket 
now,” accused Dorothy, looking at the youth di- 


“ ALIAS JOHN SMITH ” 209 

rectly. “ Don’t deny it. I wrote it myself, so I 
should know. And,” she added, wheeling on the 
mother, who had risen and let the greens slip from 
her lap, “ I want to know what you know about 
Tom Moran? ” 

“Tom Moran?” whispered the boy, shaking 
his head, and looking terrified. 

But the woman wasn’t like that. She was a 
hard, bony-looking woman, and very tall and 
strong. While Dorothy was speaking she had 
beckoned to a black-haired, red-faced woman who 
stood curiously a little distance away. 

“ What’s wanted, Jane? ” demanded this virago, 
coming forward. 

“ Here’s a poor gal out o’ her senses, I make 
no doubt,” said the woman who owned the name 
of Jane Daggett. “ She—she’s firin’ off her mouth 
too much—that’s what she’s doin’. Sech folks 
oughter be restrained-” 

“ An’ we’ll restrain ’em! ” declared the black¬ 
haired woman, and the next instant she seized 
Dorothy by the shoulders and ran into the open 
door of the hut. 

Both women were in the shack with the girl, 
and the door was closed, before Dorothy could 
even scream. 



CHAPTER XXV 


THE WOODCHUCK HUNT 

“Now, I got it all fixed, Tavia. You come 
along with us and see the fun,” said Joe Dale, at 
luncheon time. “ I’m sorry Dorothy’s gone over 
to the post-office. She won’t find anything, I’m 
afraid. Nobody came there this morning when I 
was on watch,” he added, as though that was con¬ 
clusive. 

“ But she will expect me-” 

No, she won’t. Bob and Ned are going there 
right after two o’clock, they say, and they’ll take 
her place.” 

“ If Bob Niles is going there I don’t want to 
go,” said Tavia, with a toss of her head. “ He’s 
getting too—numerous.” 

“ Come on with us and hunt woodchucks. We 
got the holes all marked this morning,” said her 
brother Johnny. “ And Rogue’s got a turtle—a 
jreal snappy one, if it is so early in the spring.” 

“A turtle? ” asked Tavia, wonderingly. “ What 
do you do with a turtle catching woodchucks? ” 

210 



THE WOODCHUCK HUNT 


211 


“Oh, you’ll see,” promised Joe. “ Gome on.” 

And Tavia, who was just crazy to run wild in 
the woods and fields again, as she herself said, 
was over-ruled and went with the boys. 

They went up into the fields near the Rouse 
farm. Had they gone by the way of the railroad 
crossing they might have passed “the Dump,” as 
the open lot was called, just about the time Dor¬ 
othy was talking with Jane Daggett and her hope¬ 
ful son. 

But Tavia and the boys—all Dorothy’s friends, 
in fact—were quite unaware of the trouble into 
which Dorothy’s impetuosity had gotten her. 

The old pasture in which the boys had dis¬ 
covered the woodchuck burrows was full of shelter¬ 
ing clumps of dwarfed trees, and piles of stone. A 
woodchuck always has two openings to his home, 
and unless a watch is set at both holes no amount 
of smoking out will enable the hunter to grab Mr. 
Woodchuck. 

“But we got it cinched! ” declared Joe Dale, 
with excitement. “ See this old mud turtle ? ” 

The turtle produced was as large as the bottom 
of a two-quart pail. Tavia, who knew lots about 
snaring and trapping small game, was frankly puz¬ 
zled over the use to which the turtle was to be put. 

“ Now you’ll see,” giggled her brother. “ And 
we ain’t goin’ to hurt the turtle a mite. Pull out 
his tail, Joe.” 


212 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


-“Yes, pull out his tail, brother,” urged Roger, 
dancing around the group that hovered about one 
of the doors to Mr. Woodchuck’s den. 

“Isn’t a turtle funny?” laughed Tavia. “He 
sits down, swallows his head, and puts both his 
hands and feet in his pockets.” 

“ Now the string,” said Joe, seriously. He tied 
a piece of stout cord to the creature’s tail. 

“ It’ll slip,” objected Johnny. 

“No, Won’t!” 

“ Give me the wire, Rogue,” commanded 
Johnny. 

The younger lad produced a piece of thin wire 
about two feet in length. At one end was a loop, 
and to this the bit of stout cord was fastened. 
Then, to the other end of the wire, Johnny at¬ 
tached a ball of cotton. Joe produced a bottle of 
coal oil. 

“ Whatever are you horrid boys going to do? ” 
demanded Tavia, suddenly. 

“ Now, we’re not going to hurt the turtle,” ex¬ 
plained her brother, calmly. “You needn’t fret. 
We’re going to get and bake Mr. Woodchuck. 
He’s proper game. Mr. Turtle may be scared for 
a minute, or two, but that’s all. He is a cold¬ 
blooded insect-” 

“Insect! hear to him!” burst out Joe Dale, 
laughing uproariously. 



THE WOODCHUCK HUNT 213 

“ Oh—ah-ugh! I mean reptile,” grunted John¬ 
ny. 

“ That’s as bad as one of the fellows in school,” 
said Roger. “ Teacher asked him what an oyster 
was, and he told her it was a fish built like a nut.” 

“ Goody! ” chuckled Tavia. “ So it is. But do 
you think this cold-blooded reptile—which is also 
a good deal like a nut—needs warming up, boys? ” 

“We won’t warm him,” explained Johnny. 
“Don’t you see we’ve got the wire tied to his tail 
with a piece of string? If the wire should get hot 
he*d never feel it. Now come on, Joe. Pour on 
the oil. You watching that other hole, Rogue? 
We don’t want the old groundhog to fool us.” 

“ He hasn’t poked his snout out here yet,” de¬ 
clared the smallest boy, with confidence. 

But Tavia, who had begun to look worried, sud¬ 
denly interfered. 

“ Say! I want to know,” she demanded, “wher¬ 
ever you boys learned to smoke a woodchuck out 
in this way? It’s not nice. I don’t like it-” 

“Aw, listen to her!” ejaculated Johnny 
Travers. “ Don’t be a softie, Tavia.” 

“I tell you it doesn’t hurt the turtle,” said Joe 
Dale. 

“ I don’t care,” said Tavia, warmly. “Even if 
it only looks as though it might hurt him, we 
shouldn’t do it. We shouldn’t even be willing to 



214 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


stand for animals appearing to be hurt. It’s not 
nice—it’s not kindly-” 

“Aw, shucks!” began her brother again; but 
Joe shut him up quickly: 

“That’s all right, Jack. If Tavia says we’re 
not to do it, we won’t. Let him go,” and in a 
moment he had released the reptile, which began 
crawling off desperately as though he knew just 
how narrow an escape he had had from becoming 
an animated torch. 

For a minute or two Johnny was inclined to 
pout. But Tavia (who knew as much about wood¬ 
chuck hunting as the boys themselves) quickly 
made a brush torch, and they saturated that with 
oil, touched it off with a match, and pushed it down 
the woodchuck hole. 

There was a big stack of corn fodder near at 
hand; but the interested young folk did not pay 
much attention to it at the moment. They did not 
even observe a certain rustling in the fodder when 
they first came to the woodchuck burrow; nor did 
they see a pair of very bright eyes, belonging to a 
young man with very red hair, that peered out at 
them when they began smoking out the denizen of 
the hole in the hillside. This red-haired person only 
grinned at them and then lay down for another 
nap in the fodder. He was laying up sleep for the 
coming night, for he expected to “ jump ” the fast 
freight to the West that passed through Dalton 



THE WOODCHUCK HUNT 


215 

at midnight, and only stopped at the water-tank' 
below this hill. 

The three boys and Tavia waited at the other 
end of the woodchuck burrow. 

“ If he doesn’t get heart-failure, or apoplexy, or 
something like that, Mr. Woodchuck will run out 
in about two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” chuckled 
Johnny Travers. 

“Your lamb has an awful long tail, Johnny,” 
quoth his sister, teasingly, after a minute or so. 

And then she suddenly joined the boys in a 
whoop of excitement. The nose of the woodchuck 
appeared. Little Rogue hit it a crack and the 
creature didn’t run far. But Johnny waited with 
uplifted “ whanger ” and there appeared a second 
woodchuck. They got that one, too—and both 
were pretty plump, for all that they had been hived 
up during the winter. 

“ We’ve got enough for a bake—a small one,” 
said Roger. 

“ Aw, wait,” said his brother. “ There’s another 
hole. Come on, Johnny! Let’s make a new torch.” 

Johnny obeyed and Joe led the way around the 
stack. There were signs of another woodchuck 
hollow. They repeated the performance with the 
torch here, and then grouped about the other out¬ 
let to welcome the groundhog when he appeared. 

In ten minutes they had a third fat carcass, and 
the boys began to skin and clean them. 


2l6 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“ Nat was laughing at us,” said Joe Dale. “ I 
reckon he and Cousin Ned will be glad enough to 
eat some of these fellows.” 

“Faugh! you wouldn’t really eat ’em?” began 
Tavia. But the boys laughed uproariously. 

“Ain’t that just like a girl?” cried Johnny. 
“Woodchuck is as good eating as ’possum, or 
coon, or squirrel.” 

“That’s all right,” laughed Tavia, tossing her 
head. “ Everybody to their taste, as the old 
woman said when she kissed her cow. I’ll choose 
squirrel—and I reckon Doro will, too—and the 
bigger boys. And I know where we can get some, 
for there’s no law on squirrels in this county. We’ll 
have some potatoes in the bake, too.” 

“ Goody! ” cried Roger, jumping around. “ It 
takes girls to think of the fixin’s.” 

“That’s so,” agreed Johnny, getting over his 
little grouch. 

“ And let’s have the bake in Griscom’s grove— 
you know—back of the old schoolhouse; there’s a 
fine place there. Don’t you remember, Johnny? ” 

“Of course,” said her brother. “There’s 
plenty of stones there for an oven. And-” 

“Oh, oh, oh! ” screamed Tavia, suddenly. 

“ Whatever became of that torch, Rogue? ” de¬ 
manded Joe. 

It was too late, however, to wonder about that. 
One side of the stack of fodder was all ablaze. 



CHAPTER XXVI 


THE FIERY FURNACE 

Dorothy was not likely to scream—not just at 
the moment she was thrust into the old shack by 
her two vigorous captors. For the black-haired 
woman clapped her dirty palm right over the 
girl’s mouth, hissing into her ear meanwhile: 

“ Let a squawk out o’ ye, me foine lady, and I’ll 
choke it back inter yer throat like a cork-stopper. 
Understand me, now? ” 

Dorothy nodded. Although she was greatly 
startled, she was not so frightened that she could 
not think clearly. What would these women make 
by trying to hold her captive here, so near a public 
street? Surely they would not really injure her if 
she obeyed them. 

“Easy, dear,” urged the light-haired woman, 
who confessed to the name of Jane Daggett. “We 
won’t hurt a hair of her head—but that hat-” 

She tore the pretty hat Dorothy wore from her 
head. Then off came the girl’s jacket. Jane Daggett 
spied the watch Dorothy carried. 

217 



218 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“The jewelry’s too much for the likes of her,” 
she said, grinning. “ And there’s her ring.” 

The black-haired woman tore the ring from 
Dorothy’s finger. “That’s my share, Jane,” she 
said. “ Don’t you be a pig, my dear.” 

“ Sure we’ll share an’ share alike,” replied Jane 
Daggett, grimly. “ Take off your dress, my dear,” 
she commanded Dorothy. “ It’s too good for ye. 
I’ll give ye one o’ me own. It may be a mite 
too big for ye; but ye’ll grow to it,” and she 
chuckled at her own witticism. 

“ Oh, please! ” gasped Dorothy, now freed 
from the bigger woman’s hand. 

“ Hush up! ” ordered the black-haired virago. 

“She’s got a pretty purse, too,” laughed Jane 
Daggett, dragging the article from the coat pocket. 

Dorothy could not help crying a little. She 
dared not make a loud noise, for she saw that the 
rougher woman would instantly strangle her if she 
did so. But she would not unbutton her dress. 

“You’d better mind!” hissed the black-haired 
woman, in a low voice. “ You’d better-” 

The unuttered threat made Dorothy tremble vio¬ 
lently. She felt as though she would faint. 
Things began to turn black around her. The hid¬ 
eous, grinning faces of her two captors swam be¬ 
fore her gaze- 

Suddenly there came a pounding on the wall 
of the shack. “ Hush! ” cried Jane Daggett. 




THE FIERY FURNACE 


219 

“What’s that? ” whispered the other woman. 

“ My Poke. What’s th’ matter, Poke ? ” 

“ Cheese it! Here’s some fellers-” 

The drawling voice of the young man who had 
got the letter at the post-office ceased. The next 
instant Dorothy heard the cheerful voice of Ned 
White, her big cousin: 

“Hullo, you! Didn’t a pretty girl just go past 
here—a girl with red in her hat and a tan coat? ” 
“Don’t know nothin’ erbout no gal,” drawled 
Poke Daggett. 

Now, Poke was naturally a coward. His lan¬ 
tern features likely showed that he was telling a 
falsehood, too. Bob Niles’ voice interposed: 

“ You’ve got good eyes, young fellow. You saw 
Miss Dale all right. Which way did she go? ” 

“ Ain’t seen no gal,” drawled Poke. 

Jane Daggett had Dorothy by one arm. Her 
lean fingers were bruising the tender flesh warn- 
ingly. On the other side stood the black-haired 
woman with a piece of plank held threateningly to 
strike. Dorothy could see nails in that plank—if 
the woman used it, her face would be lacerated! 

“ Hul-/o! ” exclaimed Ned’s voice, suddenly. 
“Handkerchief, by Jove!” cried Bob. 

“ It’s Dorothy’s, too! This rascal-” 

There was a sudden spurning of the gravel. 
Poke, lazy as he was, had begun to run. With 
a shout Bob leaped away after him. 




230 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

But Ned turned toward the closed cabin door. 
The wadded-up handkerchief had dropped from 
the cuff of Dorothy’s coat just as she was being 
pushed inside. It was off the sidewalk, and Ned’s 
brain worked quickly. 

“ Come back here, Bob! ” he yelled. “ He’s 
only putting us off the scent. Here she is!” 

In a moment Ned burst into the shack. Jane 
Daggett dodged and ran out. The black-haired 
virago aimed a blow at Ned’s head with the plank, 
but missed him by a hair’s breadth. 

“ Look out! Look out! ” cried Dorothy, sink¬ 
ing into a corner, out of the way. 

“ Oh, I’d give a dollar if you were a man for 
a minute!” exclaimed Ned, stepping around the 
woman to dodge her blows, but having to stand her 
coarse vituperations. 

Bob came back with a whoop. The woman 
dodged out and disappeared up the gully on the 
trail of Jane Daggett. Dorothy’s hat, coat, watch, 
purse and ring went with them. 

“They’ve robbed and beaten you, Dot,” cried 
Ned, beside himself with rage. “Oh! if they’d 
only been men so we could hit em. 

“Well, now,” began Bob, when Dorothy 
panted: 

“ There’s the boy, Ned. Let’s catch him. Never 
mind my things. That boy got the letter and he 
knows about Tom Moran, I am sure.” 


THE FIERY FURNACE 


221 


“ He’s crossed the tracks,” said Bob. “ If you 
hadn’t called me back, Ned, I’d had him.” 

“ We’ll get him yet,” declared Ned. “ Come on.” 

He took his cousin’s hand. Bob seized Dor¬ 
othy’s other hand and she ran between them, down 
across the railroad tracks and up the hill. They 
were going toward Rouse’s farm. They saw the 
lanky, white-haired youth climbing the heights 
above them. 

Suddenly smoke and fire burst out at a point in 
the upper pasture far from Simeon Rouse’s house. 
It was a fodder stack afire, and Dorothy and the 
two boys saw several figures running about it. 

The path over the upland which Poke Daggett 
followed led him right past the fired stack of corn 
fodder. Ned and Dorothy both saw this. 

“ Leave me behind, boys—do,” she gasped. 
“ You can overtake him and I can’t.” 

“ Isn’t that Tavia ? ” demanded Bob Niles. “ It 
is she, I’m sure.” 

“And the boys,” cried Dorothy. “Tell them to 
stop him, Ned! ” 

Ned White raised his voice in a great whoop. 
He waved his hands and pointed to the running 
Daggett. The latter was almost up to the stack 
of burning fodder. 

It was Tavia’s quick mind that understood 
Ned’s yells and gestures. She sprang straight into 
the path of the white-haired youth. He dodged 


222 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


her, but came to his knees. Joe and Johiwiy, well 
up in football tactics, tackled low and brought the 
fellow down again before he had fairly regained 
his feet. 

“That’s it! Hold him!” whooped Bob and 
Ned. 

They left Dorothy behind as they clambered up 
the rough hillside. The staggering Daggett put 
forth the last ounce of his faint strength. He rose 
up, threw off the two smaller boys, and started on. 

And just then a new actor appeared in the field 
—and a most astonishing one. A yell of fright 
sounded, and there sprang out of the fodder stack 
—seemingly from the very heart of the fire—a 
figure wreathed by smoke and sparks. Indeed, the 
man’s clothing was afire at several points. 

But most striking of all, his hair was the red¬ 
dest of the red, and his freckles stood out prom- 
inendy on the background of his pale skin. 

“Fire! Fire,” he roared. “Who’s tr-ryin’ to 
burn me up ? Wow! is that you, Poke Daggett ? ” 

He whirled right into the flying Daggett’s arms. 
He had been trying to beat out the sparks upon 
his clothing, and as he collided with Poke, the two 
went to the ground. 

“ It—it’s that redhead! ” gasped Tavia. “ Oh, 
it’s surely Tom Moran! ” 

Joe and Johnny—and even little Roger Dale— 
ran to assist in putting out the fire in the red-haired 


THE FIERY FURNACE 


223 

man’s clothing. Poke Daggett rose and tried to 
drag himself away. 

But Ned and Bob arrived, and the former or¬ 
dered young Daggett to stop. “ We’ve got a bone 
to pick with you, you white-haired rascal. Wait! 
Isn’t your name Moran?” he asked of the man 
who had been afire. 

“ I don’t know—they woke me up so quick,” re¬ 
turned the red-headed one, with a grin. “ How¬ 
ever did these kids set the fodder afire? Somebody 
will have to pay Simeon Rouse for it.” 

“We’ll ’tend to that,” returned Ned, quickly. 
“ But Miss Dale is very anxious to meet you.” 

“ Meet me ? ” asked Tom Moran, for it was he. 
“ About that runaway the other day? I’m mighty 

sorry the steers ran-” 

“ That’s not it,” said Tavia, briskly. “ It’s about 

your sister Celia, and Miss Olaine, and-” 

Tom Moran’s face changed instantly. He for¬ 
got all about Poke, who would have crept away 
had not Bob taken a turn in his jacket collar and 
held the fellow prisoner. 

“ I guess you’re saying something now, Miss,” 
said Moran, gravely. “ What do you know about 
my little sister? I’ve been hunting for her a long 

time. And the other person you speak of-” 

Then Dorothy arrived and, as Tavia said, “ the 
court of inquiry went into executive session.” 





CHAPTER XXVII 


THE RING ON MISS OLAINE’S FINGER 

Tom Moran read the besmirched letter Dor¬ 
othy had received through her advertisement in 
the paper. Then he made Poke Daggett give up 
the reply he had taken addressed to “John 
Smith.” 

“ Explanation’s easy,” he said, bluntly. “These 
Daggetts knew me. Why, I fed ’em for a whole 
month this winter when Jane Daggett was sick. 
Ain’t that so, Poke ? ” 

Poke whined: “ Wal, ’twarn’t none o’ my doin’s, 
Tom. I tole ma how ’twould be. But she seen 
the notice in the Salvation Army paper. One o* 
them Salvation Anns was round ter see us an’ lef’ 
the paper; maw said mebbe there was money 
in it for us ef we played our cards right-” 

“ And all we were trying to find Mr. Moran for 
was because of his little sister—and she wanting 
him so! ” ejaculated Tavia. “ My 1 but you Dag¬ 
getts must be mean sort of folks.” 

This frank statement drew no comment from 
Poke. He was too meek now. 


224 



THE RING ON MISS OLAINE’S FINGER 225 

“Well, I reckon you can get out,” said Tom 
Moran, grimly. “And tell your maw to bring 
around to the place where I’ve been boarding 
Miss Dale’s hat and coat, the watch, the pocket- 
book and the ring—and anything else they took 
from Miss Dale. If she doesn’t do it I’ll see that 
she and you and that Munsey woman all go to jail, 
where you belong. Believe me, I’ll do it! ” 

Tom Moran, although he had been only work¬ 
ing at odd jobs about Dalton, was a person of 
intelligence and seemed to feel sure of his ability 
to do as he said. When Poke was out of the way, 
he turned back to Dorothy and smiled broadly. 

“ I get it that you have been interesting your¬ 
self in my affairs, Miss, and I thank you. If you 
can tell me anything about poor little Cel.y-” 

“ I can tell you all about her, Mr. Moran,” cried 
Dorothy, eagerly. “ And you really couldn’t find 
her? ” 

“I’ll tell you how it was,” said Tom Moran. 
“ I went away to get work that would pay me 
better. I was going to send money to Auntie 
every month. I went with a gang to Mexico, and 
the very first week we were at work a crowd of 
rebels came and drove us away from the job, and 
I got shot. 

“ I was in a hospital in Texas. Then I came 
East, after writing and getting no answer from 
Auntie. When I got home the very house we 



226 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


lived in was torn down and there wasn’t a soul in 
the neighborhood remembered my aunt, or little 
Cely, or knew what became of them. 

“ I hunted around and advertised in the papers, 
but didn’t get any news. I had to go to work 
again, and I got a job on the Adrian Building, 
that was put up right next to the old Rector Street 
School. I guess you read about that school being 
burned?” he asked, with a sidelong glance at Dor¬ 
othy, that reminded the girl very much of Celia 
herself. 

“ We looked it up,” said Dorothy. 

“ Oh, and there’s Miss Olaine! ” interposed the 
deeply interested Tavia. “ Did you know Miss 
Rebecca Olaine? ” 

“ Hush, Tavia! ” admonished Dorothy. 

But Tom Moran flushed up to the very roots of 
his red hair, and his blue eyes opened wide. 

“ Guess I do know her,” he said. “ Why—why, 
we boarded at the same house together, for a 
while. On Morrell Street. Of course—of course, 
Miss Olaine was toe high-toned a lady for 
me-” 

Tavia sniffed. “ I don’t know, Mr. Moran. 
She’s one of our teachers now at Glenwood. Aren’t 
you just as good as anybody else? ” 

“ Well! I dunno. I ain’t eddicated, as ye might 
say. When I get re’l excited I drop inter the 
brogue, too,” and he shook his head with a grin. 



THE RING ON MISS OLAINE’S FINGER 22; 

“ Howsomever, no need to speak of that fire— 
or Miss Olaine-” 

“ But we want to know,” began the eager and 
curious Tavia. 

“Hold on, now!” cried Ned White. “Let’s 
have things on order. All this search of Dorothy’s 
was taken on because of the little girl, I under¬ 
stand ? ” 

“I promised Celia I’d find her brother,” said 
Dorothy, gravely. “And I believe you are he, 
Mr. Moran. She says her brother is Tom Moran, 
and that he is very big and strong, and—that his 
hair is red-” 

“That’s me! ” cried Tom Moran, slapping his 
knee, and bursting into laughter. “The little 
dear! She used ter pull my hair when she was a 
baby. She ain’t forgot.” 

“No,” said Dorothy, quietly. “She hasn’t 
forgotten. 4 He builds bridges, and things,’ Celia 
says. And she prays for you to come for her every 
night, Tom Moran. She—she is just wearing her 
little heart out for you,” and Dorothy hid her 
eyes and sobbed aloud. 

“Oh, my dear!” cried Tavia, coming to hug 

her. 

“You tell me all about her, Miss,” urged the 
red-haired man. “ I’ll sure go after her if she’s 
t thousand miles away.” 

“Oh. she’s not,” replied Dorothy, through her 




228 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

tears. “ She’s only eight miles from Glenwood, 
on Mrs. Hogan’s farm.” 

“That ogress! ” muttered Tavia. 

“What’s that?” exclaimed Tom Moran. 
“What d’ye call her? Isn’t Cely being treated 
right by some woman? ” 

“ It’s only that the child wants to be loved— 
and Mrs. Hogan doesn’t love her,” Dorothy said, 
mildly. “ She’s never improperly treated—not 
really.” 

“ Just the same, that Hogan is an awful wom¬ 
an,” grumbled Tavia. 

Dorothy proceded to repeat to Tom Moran all 
the story of little Celia, as the child had told it 
to her; and she told, also, of her first meeting with 
Celia and her promise, and how she (Dorothy)! 
had been lost in the snow and had spent Sunday 
at Mrs. Hogan’s; likewise, how Celia, “jes’ the 
cutest little thing,” had longed to see Dorothy so 
much that she had run away from the farm woman 
and found Glenwood Hall all by herself. 

“And if you don’t say she’s the cutest thing 
you ever saw when you set eyes on her-” in¬ 

terrupted the exuberant Tavia. 

“ I want to see her bad enough, the Lord knows. 
I was going to beat it away from Dalton this very 
night. Lucky you boys set that rick afire, or I’d 
still been sleeping, and I’d caught the night freight 
out of here—that’s right,” said Tom Moran. 



THE RING ON MISS OLAINE’S FINGER 229 


“ But I’ll get a job now—a steady job. I’ll 
have an anchor if I have Cely. That’s what Miss 
Olaine used to say I needed. Ye see,” said Tom, 
again blushing, “ she an’ me was awful good 
friends once.” 

“ But why did you run away after the school- 
house fire?” asked Tavia, the curious. 

“Well, ye see,” said Tom Moran, “the news¬ 
paper made such a fuss over it—and folks began 
to talk about doin’ foolish things-” 

“You were a hero!” cried Tavia. “A real 
hero.” 

“ Aw, no, ” said Moran, blushing again. “ That 
was all newspaper talk. Anyhow I didn’t want 
money for saving them kids from being burned 
up.” 

“ But you needn’t have run away,” sighed Dor¬ 
othy. “ Your modesty made us a lot of trouble. 
You know, we might have found you out a long 
time ago-” 

“ Huh! Everybody didn’t think so much of 
me,” grinned Tom Moran. Yet he looked serious 

the next minute. “ You see—Miss—Olaine- 

Well, we’d had some words, and I’d left the Mor¬ 
rell Street house before the fire happened. I’d 
have gone away from that town, anyway.” 

“ And your seeing her at the fire helped to make 
you decide to leave town?” demanded the shrewd 
Tavia. 




230 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

V 

“Why, Tavia!” murmured Dorothy, rathef 
disturbed because her friend seemed to pry into 
Tom Moran’s personal affairs. 

“Something like that, I s’pose,” replied the 
young man, running his blackened hands through 
his mop of red hair. “Ye see—Well! we was en¬ 
gaged.” 

“To be married?” queried Ned, open-eyed. 

“ Of course.” 

“ Oh, dear me! ” whispered Dorothy in Tavia’s 
ear; “ and we treated Miss Olaine so meanly.” 

“ Huh! Did we know it? ” returned her friend. 

“ I guess she got sorry right away. Of course I 
ain’t in her class,” said Tom Moran, soberly. 
“ She’s got education. I ain’t got nothing but a 
little schoolin’ an’ me two hands. But she was 
willing to wear my ring, and-” 

“Tell me,” interrupted Dorothy, herself get¬ 
ting personal now, “ is it a ring with a diamond 
in the middle and little chip emeralds around it? ” 

“Ye—as,” drawled Tom Moran, looking at 
her again in his sly way. 

“ She’s wearing it yet,” murmured Dorothy. 

“And on her engagement finger,” cried Tavia. 
[“I remember! She—she-” 

“Hush! ” warned Dorothy. Then she said to 
Tom Moran: “ She must think a whole lot of you 
yet, Mr. Moran.” 

“ Do—do you think so ? ” 




THE RING ON MISS OLAINE’S FINGER 231 

“I am sure.” She whispered in his ear about 
Miss Olaine coming to Number Nineteen the 
night little Celia had slept with Dorothy, and 
how the teacher had stooped over and kissed the 
little girl. 

“ She did it in memory of you—I am sure,” 
Dorothy said, earnestly. 

The others had stepped aside to look at the 
woodchucks. Tavia had seen that Dorothy wished 
to speak to Tom Moran alone. 

“ Why was it she wouldn’t let me haul her out 
of that fire, then, two years ago ? ” demanded Tom 
Moran, in an injured tone. 

“ Wouldn’t she let you help her? ” 

“ She give me a shove into the fire herself. Guess 
that was an accident. But she said, 1 Don’t you 
touch me!’” declared Tom. 

“ I wouldn’t let that worry me,” Dorothy said, 
decidedly. “ I am sure that Miss Olaine has been 
grieving over your absence all this time. She was 
excited at the fire, I suppose. Oh, Mr. Moran! 
you can’t always tell what a woman means by 
what she says.” 

“Is that so?” returned Tom Moran, wonder* 
ingly. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


“ JES* THE CUTEST LITTLE THING W 

The woodchuck bake in the grove behind the 
old school house, which Dorothy and Tavia used 
to attend, was pronounced a success by the three 
youngsters. Of course, there were not many in¬ 
vited guests, for aside from three woodchucks and 
a half bushel of sweet potatoes, there were but 
half a dozen squirrels baked in the ashes of a huge 
campfire. These were not sufficient to supply a 
regiment, as Tavia herself said—and Tavia was 
a generous body. 

Besides the two girl friends and the three 
small boys, there were the four freshmen, three 
of whom had frankly come down here to Dalton 
for this spring vacation just because Dorothy 
and Tavia were here. 

These individuals could not really be counted 
as guests—any of them. So Tom Moran was 
really the only guest at the bake. He had re¬ 
covered Dorothy’s hat and jacket and other pos¬ 
sessions from the Daggetts and their friends, and 
232 


“JES’ THE CUTEST LITTLE THING” 233 


when he brought them to Tavia’s, Dorothy and her 
chum made Tom come along with them to the pic¬ 
nic. 

Ned White had gone to Mr. Rouse, the farmer, 
and paid for the burned fodder stack. 

“Eight dollars, young gentlemen,” said Ned, 
rather grimly, to Joe and Roger Dale and Tavia’s 
brother. Rather a high price to pay per pound 
for woodchuck meat; and Nat figured it out to cost 
something like sixty or seventy cents per pound. 

“ Oh! don’t talk about it that way, Nat,” begged 
Joe. “ It will taste so of money that none of us 
kids will want to eat it.” 

They all got pretty well acquainted with Tom 
Moran that day. And he really was a fine young 
fellow. Although his book learning might not be 
extensive, he had traveled much and was one of 
those fortunate persons who remember, and 
can talk of, what they have seen. 

Tom Moran was going back with the girls the 
next day, for the vacation was close upon its end. 
At first he was not decided what he should do after 
getting little Celia from Mrs. Hogan. But Tavia 
and Dorothy fixed that . 

“Tom,” said Mr. Travers, when the party re¬ 
turned from the woodchuck bake, “ I’ve been talk¬ 
ing with my partners and we want you to settle 
down here in Dalton and work for us.” 

“I don’t know, Mr. Travers,” said the young 


234 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


man, undecidedly. “You see, I had some words 
with Simpson-” 

“ Oh, you won’t be under Simpson—and we 
won’t put a mechanic like you to driving an ox- 
team, either. There is a better job than that here 
for you,” and Mr. Travers talked seriously with 
the red-haired youth for an hour. 

“ The trouble with you is, you have never set¬ 
tled down. You haven’t had an anchor. Now, 
Celia can’t travel about with you, and she’s got 
to be your care for some years to come.” 

“ I know. If I can get her away from that 
Hogan woman. I may have trouble there—if 
the foundling asylum folk let Mrs. Hogan adopt 
her.” 

“ If you want help in that matter, you trust to 
Major Dale, Dorothy’s father. He’ll see you 
through, Tom. And so will your friends here in 
Dalton. We want you to come back here and go 
to work.” 

Thus it was arranged. Tom, the next day, 
appeared at the railroad station in a neat suit 
and with a new grip in his hand. The grip was 
practically empty, he told Dorothy; but he pro¬ 
posed to get it filled up with nice clothes for Celia 
if he could get the child away from her taskmis- 
tress at once. 

The White boys and Abe Perriton and Bob 
Niles traveled back to college in the Firebird, so 



“JES’ THE CUTEST LITTLE THING” 235 


Dorothy and Tavia said good-bye to them before 
they left Dalton. Bob Niles tried to get Tavia 
off by herself to talk on the last evening they 
were together; but Tavia was suddenly very strict 
with him. 

“ You are nothing but a college freshman,” she 
told him, coolly, “ and a very fresh freshman at 
that! Don’t you think for a minute that you are 
a grown-up young man—you are not. And I am 
only three months, or so, older than I was when 
we parted in New York. It’s going to be a long, 
long time before either Doro or I will begin to 
think seriously of young men. Besides—you’re 
not a twin,” she added, and ran away from him, 
leaving poor Bob greatly puzzled by her final 
phrase. 

They were going back to Glenwood a day early, 
because of Tom’s anxiety. When the train reached 
the school station only Tavia got off; Dorothy 
went on to Belding with Celia’s brother. 

At the station they hired a carriage and an hour 
later drove into the lane leading to Mrs. Hogan’s 
home. 

It was the first real spring day. The grass 
“was getting green by the minute,” so Tom said; 
the trees were budding bountifully; every little rill 
and stream was full and dancing to its own melody 
over the pebbles; the early feathered comers, from 


236 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


swamp and woodland, were splitting their throats 
in song. 

And when the two drove into the yard there 
were sounds of altercation from the house—the 
first harsh sounds they had heard since starting 
from B elding. 

“ And that’s the way ye do ut—hell ? ” exclaimed 
Mrs. Hogan’s strident voice. “After all I been 
tellin’ yez. Ye air the most impident, useless, 
wasteful crature that ever I come across 1 An’ not 
a bit of gratichude have ye for me takin’ yez out 
of the Findling an’ givin’ ye a home, an’ sumpin’ to 
ate, an’ a place ter lie down in.’ Bad ’cess ter yez, 
Cely Moran! Sorry the day I ever tuk yez-” 

“I—I’m so sorry,” interposed Celia’s feeble 
little voice. “Won’t—won’t you please take me 
back there, ma’am? ” 

“ Tak’ ye back where? ” demanded the woman, 
in an uglier tone, were that possible. “ Ta'k’ ye back 
where ? ” 

“ To the Findling, ma’am. Oh, dear me! ” 
sobbed Celia, “ I was a great deal happier there! ” 

“ Ungrateful-” 

“ No, ma’am. It isn’t that,” declared the child, 
grown desperate at last, perhaps. “ But you don’t 
love me. You don’t love any little girls. And I’d 
go without a sup to eat, or a roof like you give me, 
or—or a bed, jes’ to be loved a little.” 

“ Plague o’ me life! ” ejaculated the woman. 




“JES’ THE CUTEST LITTLE THING ” 237 


They heard her swift and heavy foot across 
the floor. The child cried out before she was 
struck. Tom had helped Dorothy out of the car¬ 
riage and was tying the horse. Swift of foot, the 
girl from Glenwood was before him at the door. 

“ Celia! ” she cried, before the echo of the slap 
crossed the kitchen. 

Celia’s whimper was changed to a scream of 
delight. She rushed across the room into Doro¬ 
thy’s arms. 

“ How dare you, Mrs. Hogan? ” excaimed Dor¬ 
othy, her beautiful eyes fairly flashing with anger. 
“How dare you? ” 

“ Who are ye, now? What! come to make more 
trouble, heh?” exclaimed the woman, advancing 
in her rage in a very threatening way toward Dor¬ 
othy. 

But Dorothy stood her ground, while the child 
cowered behind her. “ You cannot scare me, Mrs. 
Hogan,” declared Dorothy. “ You dare not strike 
me. Nor shall you ever touch this little one 
again.” 

“ Impidence! ” gasped the woman. “ I’ll show 
ye-” 

“ Show me, missus,” growled Tom Moran, his 
face very much flushed and his red hair seeming 
to stand fairly on end. 

He had entered, put Dorothy and Celia gently 
to one side, and stood before the ogress. “ Show 



238 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


me, missus,” he said again. “ I’m more like your 
size.” 

“Who are you?” demanded the farm woman, 
taken aback. 

But Celia’s voice was again heard—and this 
time it was no whimper. She suddenly bounded 
upon Tom and clasped both her tiny arms about 
one of his sturdy legs. 

“ I know him! I know him! ” she shrieked. “ My 
Miss Dorothy Dale has kep’ her promise . It’s 
Tom Moran. I knowed I’d know him. Don’t 
you see his red hair? ” 

“ And he kin take his red hair out o’ here,” de¬ 
clared Mrs. Hogan, standing with arms akimbo 
and a very red face. 

“It’s quick enough I shall be doin’ so,” said 
Tom Moran, sternly. “ And Cely shall come with 
me.” 

“Not much! ” ejaculated the woman. “I got 
her, bound hard and fast be the orphan asylum 
folks-” 

Tom seemed to swell until he was twice his 
usual size. His steely eyes flashed as Dorothy’s 
had flashed. 

“ Let me tell ye something, me lady,” he almost 
croaked, and shaking a finger in Mrs. Hogan’s 
face. u If ye had a stack av papers from the 
foundling asylum, as high as yon tree, ye’d not 
kape me from takin’ away me own sister—mind 



“JES’ THE CUTEST LITTLE THING ” 239 

that now! And you call yourself an Irishwoman? 
Where’s yer hear-r-rt? Where’s yer pity for the 
little wan of yer own race, left to the tinder care 
of strangers? Ah-h! ” 

Like Ned White, when he had tackled the Dag¬ 
gett woman and her crony, Tom Moran heartily 
wished at that moment that Mrs. Ann Hogan 
were a man! 

“ I’m going to take me sister away from ye,” 
said Tom, after a minute’s silence. “Stay me if 
ye dare! ” 

He picked the child up suddenly and hugged 
her fiercely to his broad breast. Celia, with a 
happy cry, put both arms about his neck, and 
looked up into his red face. 

“ Fse so glad you corned for me like you did, 
Tom Moran. And you will keep me with you 
always ? ” 

“ Please God I will, Cely,” he said kissing her, 
hungrily. 

The child laughed, and flung her head back so 
that she could see him the better. 

“ Do you hear, dear Dorothy Dale? ” she cried. 
“ I am going with Tom Moran. Why, maybe 
we’ll keep house together. I can keep the house— 
jes’ as clean! An’ I can cook, an’ scrub, an’ wash— 
’cause you know, they say I’se jes’ the cutest little 
thing! ” 


CHAPTER XXIX 


WHITE LAWN AND WHITE ROSES 

The great green campus between Glenwood 
Hall and the road looked to be scattered over 
with snowdrifts. That is the way it must have 
looked to an aviator had one sailed over the old 
school and looked down upon the campus on this 
beautiful June day. 

But the snow drifts were of lawn and roses. 
Every girl in the school was dressed in white, 
and every girl wore, or carried, white roses. 
They were grouped by classes, or in little cliques, 
while a photographer from the city with a great 
camera arranged to take a picture of the scene. 

# “ Hope he’ll hurry up,” groaned Cologne, sit¬ 
ting with Dorothy and Tavia and some of the 
other girls. “ My foot’s asleep.” 

“ Hush-a-by! don’t wake it up,” drawled Tavia. 
“You know, Cologne, you haven’t really had a 
good sleep this half.” 

“Especially this last month or six weeks,” 
groaned Ned Ebony. “Hasn’t old Olaine just 
kept us on the hop? ” 

“Why,” said Nita Brent, thoughtfully, “I had 
240 


WHITE LAWN AND WHITE ROSES 241 

been thinking Olaine was a whole lot nicer than 
she used to be. ,, 

“ Certain sure she’s done better by us since 
Easter,” said Molly Richards, earnestly. 

“You’re famous for seeing the best side of a 
thing, Dicky,” laughed Ned. “I tell you she’s 
pushed me hard.” 

“And me!” “Andus-uns!” 

The wail became general. Dorothy’s mellow 
laugh brought them to time. 

“ Where does the giggle come in, Miss Dale?” 
demanded Edna Black. 

“Sh! don’t disturb your pose,” begged one of 
the others. “ That photographer is getting ready.” 

“Well, what does Doro mean by laughing?” 
complained Rose-Mary, otherwise Cologne. 

“ I mean to say,” said Doro, quietly, “ that you 
girls all amuse me. Of course we’ve been pushed 
this half—and especially this last month.” 

“ And Olaine has done it! ” declared Edna. 

“ Quite so. It was her business to. Do you 
realize that is what Mrs. Pangborn hired her 
for? And it’s too bad she isn’t going to stay.” 

“ Not going to stay? ” cried one. 

“ Olaine just delighted in pushing us,” observed 
another. 

“Of course she did,” Tavia said to the last 
speaker. “ Doesn’t Doro point out the fact that 
that was her job here?” 


242 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“And isn’t it going to be her job after this 
term? ” demanded Edna Black. 

“ Oh! ” cried another girl. “ This combination 
of Doro Dale and Tavia Travers knows every¬ 
thing ! ” 

“ If that is so, they might scatter some of their 
intelligence among the faithful,” drawled Cologne, 

“ First, why should we accept Olaine as a slave 
driver, and thank her for it? ” demanded Edna. 

“ Because this graduating class has higher marks 
and ‘does Mrs. Pangborn proud’ more than any 
class ever graduated from Glenwood. Didn’t you 
know that?” replied Dorothy. 

“ And I guess we can thank Olaine,” said Tavia, 
nodding. “ I know / can.” 

“ And I! And I! ” chorused others. 

“ She was awful crusty about it,” said Molly, 
“but she did know how to make us climb.” 

“We’re some climbers,” remarked Tavia, air¬ 
ily. “ I’ve got so high myself that I feel dizzy.” 

“But say! about Olaine. Is she really going 
to leave?” impatiendy demanded one miss who 
could not keep her mind on the main point. 

“ Wait! ” commanded Dorothy. “The man is 
going to take the pictures. Do be still now.” 

“Steady, my hearties,” drawled Tavia; but her 
lips hardly moved. 

There was silence all over the great lawn. It 
was then that the aviator—had he flown over the 


WHITE LAWN AND WHITE ROSES 243 

spot suddenly—might have thought the white of 
lawn and roses heaps of unsullied snow, for the 
girls were just as still as they could be. 

“ Thank you, young ladies. That is all! ” 
shouted a little, fat man in tall hat and frock- 
coat. “We will not trouble you longer.” 

And in a minute the groups were broken up, and 
the girls in white were flitting here and there over 
the green. So much was going on before the 
bell rang for the graduation class to march to 
the hall that the question about Miss Olaine was 
not just then answered. 

But Dorothy showed Tavia two letters she 
had received that morning from Dalton. The 
outside envelope was addressed to her in the large, 
rather stiff lettering of Tom Moran; but inside 
there was a little pink note enclosed with the red¬ 
headed young man’s letter. 

“ Dear little Celia! ” exclaimed Tavia. “ Let 
me read it, Doro.” 

And the difficult little scrawl from “jess’ the 
cutest little thing ” brought both laughter and tears 
to the eyes of tender-hearted Tavia: 

“‘My loverly, dere miss Doroty Dale: 

‘ My teacher says she will look ove this letter 
for mistaks; but she says to ime larnin fast as can 
be. I wuz goin to kep hous for Tom Moran but he 
says no not yet sometime praps. I gotter go to 


244 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


schol fust. But Tom Moran is got a big, big 
house and hes got furnchure an pitchers an things 
an he says he is goin to let a lady come and kep 
hous for us till i git bigger. Her name is Olain 
and he says she is goin to be lik aunty was to me, 
only better. So no more now from one that lovs 
you lots you no your little Celia.’ ” 

“Then it’s going to be—really?” demanded 
Tavia, of her chum. 

“About Miss Olaine?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Open the other note,” commanded Dorothy. 

And that frank letter from Tom Moran de¬ 
lighted Tavia quite as much as did the mis-spelled 
one from Celia. Tom had stopped at the school 
when he had brought Celia away from Mrs. 
Hogan’s. And he had asked to see, and had been 
closeted in the office for an hour with, no other 
than Miss Rebecca Olaine! 

“And I saw that ring on her finger when she 
went in,” Tavia had whispered to Dorothy, on 
that now long past occasion. “ And it was still 
on her finger when she came out.” 

But the interested schoolmates did not know for 
sure “ that it was all fixed ” until this day when 
Tom Moran’s letter had come to Dorothy. 

Miss Olaine had never shown the chums any 
particular friendliness; that was not her way. But, 


WHITE LAWN AND WHITE ROSES 245 


as they were strolling up to Number Nineteen for 
a last u prinking ” before the exercises in the 
chapel, the teacher passed them in the corridor. 

“ Come and have tea this afternoon in my room, 
young ladies,” she said, quite as though she were 
giving a command instead of an invitation. 

“Of course we will, dear Miss Olaine,” cried 
Dorothy, brightly. “ We will be delighted to.” 

The grim teacher flushed. When she flushed 
her eyes twinkled and she looked happier than the 
girls had ever seen her look before. 

“ Do you really mean that, Dorothy Dale ? ” 
she asked, quickly. 

“ Mean what?” questioned Dorothy, in surprise. 

“That you will take pleasure in drinking tea 
with me ? ” 

“ Why, Miss Olaine, no invitation could have 
given me so much pleasure to-day—and I am sure 
Tavia feels the same.” 

“ I—I am afraid I did not understand you girls 
very well when first I came here to Glenwood,” 
said Miss Olaine, gravely. 

“ Oh, dear Miss Olaine! we did not understand 
you either! ” cried Dorothy. 

“And I was real mean to you,” said Tavia, 
orokenly. “ But now-” 

The impulsive girl threw her arms about Miss 
Olaine’s neck and whispered in her ear: “We’re 
so, so happy about you and Tom Moran! For 


246 DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


you’ll love Celia, too, and you all will have such 
a fine time together! ” 

Miss Olaine blushed more deeply at that, and 
looked very much confused. “ You—you’ll really 
come, girls?” she repeated, and then fairly ran 
into her room and closed the door. 

A little later the bell began to peal. The grad¬ 
uating class gathered in the porch. Dorothy and 
Tavia were at the head of the line. The others 
took their places. Dear little Miss Mingle began 
to play the march on the piano. 

“Hay foot, straw foot!” whispered Tavia, 
bound to joke even on so serious an occasion. 

They led the procession down the steps. As 
they approached the chapel the organ broke forth 
in the same march Miss Mingle had begun. The 
audience room was already crowded, save for the 
seats reserved for the graduating class. 

“ Oh! my father! ” whispered Tavia. 

“ And my father, and Aunt Winnie,” whispered 
Dorothy, in return. 

With sparkling eyes the girls took their seats 
upon the platform. There was singing, and an¬ 
nouncements, and speaking, and the girls filled in 
their own part of the program—Dorothy with the 
valedictory, Cologne with quite a serious paper, 
Nita, as class poet, and Tavia as class historian. 

It was almost like a dream to Dorothy Dale— 
the speaking, the music, the applause which fol- 


WHITE LAWN AND WHITE ROSES 247 

lowed the reading of her own paper, and all that 
was said and done. Mrs. Pangborn finally came 
forward and two of the smallest girls in the school 
held the basket of blue-ribboned diplomas. 

“My prize class,” said the principal, rather 
brokenly, “is leaving me and leaving Glenwood 
forever. You fathers and mothers must see your 
children go out into the world one at a time. But 
you seldom know the wrench of parting with so 
many bright faces at once. 

“ And this happens to me year after year. Just 
as I get to know them all, to understand their dif¬ 
ferent dispositions, to learn all their lovable traits, 
they leave me. And, perhaps, just as they begin 
to see that I am their friend and loving helper 
instead of their taskmistress, they graduate. Ah, 
if they carry from Glenwood something that shall 

make their future lives sweeter, nobler-” 

Dorothy could not hear what else she said for 
she could not see Mrs. Pangborn through her fall¬ 
ing tears and without sight hearing seemed to leave 
her, too. Pictures of the past, of her many achieve¬ 
ments here at Glenwood, and fun and frolic as 

well, passed before her eyes. And then- 

“ Miss Dorothy Dale! ” 

Mrs. Pangborn’s voice was steady again. Tavia 
gave her friend a slight push. 

Dorothy Dale went forward to receive her dip¬ 
loma. 




CHAPTER XXX 


a GOODNIGHT, GLENWOOD, GOD BLESS YOU ! ” 

!' “Am I not proud of my Little Captain?” said 
Major Dale, leaning on Dorothy’s shoulder as 
they slowly wended their way out of doors. 

Roger was at her other hand, and Joe nearby. 
The boys had left their own school a day or two 
early to come and “see sister graduate.” Aunt 
Winnie had congratulated “ her daughter,” as she 
was proud to call Dorothy, too. 

“Ned and Nat are only sorry that they could 
not come. Indeed, I had forbade it. We will go 
to their college instead to help them 4 receive ’ on 
Commencement Day,” Aunt Winnie declared. 

“ And there is a big surprise in store for you, 
my dear,” she added, pinching Dorothy’s cheek; 
but what it was we can only learn when we meet 
Dorothy and her friends again in “ Dorothy Dale 
in the West.” 

Now there was so very, very much to do in get¬ 
ting ready to leave old Glenwood for the last time. 
The girls had yet to pack; they would sleep one 
more night in the old room. Then the class would 
scatter, perhaps never to meet again! 

248 


GOODNIGHT, GLENWOOD 


249 


Of course there were hundreds of promises to 
write and to visit, and plans for the summer were 
being discussed right and left. Dorothy felt more 
serious than she ever had felt before; but Tavia 
was so excited that she could scarcely keep both 
feet on the ground at once. 

“You are really glad to leave dear old Glen- 
wood, ” said Dorothy, after they had drunk tea 
with Miss Olaine and come up to their room again. 

“ I never did like school as you do, Dorothy. But 
I love the old crowd, and I’m sorry to lose the 
fun we have here,” Tavia admitted. 

“The whole world’s before us now,” sighed 
Dorothy. 

“ Dish-washing, and sweeping, and bed-making, 
and all that is before your humble servant,” 
laughed Tavia. “ I’m going home, as you know, 
to keep father’s house for him spick and span. 
Mother will be glad. She hates housework.” 

They packed their trunks more soberly than they 
had ever packed them for removal from the school 
before. Down from the walls came every keep¬ 
sake and picture that they owned. 

“ Nix on the decorations! ” Tavia said. “ Jumble 
them all into the boxes. Never more shall they 
hang from the battlements-” 

“What a lot of them there are, too?” sighed 
Dorothy. “ Not half room in this box for my 
photographs.” 



250 


DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 


“We might throw away all the boys’ photo¬ 
graphs,” said Tavia, giggling. “You know, we 
have foresworn boys. Is that right, Doro? ” 

“ Oh, yes; boys are only a nuisance—except our 
brothers and cousins. Don’t you say so, Tavia?” 

“ Sure! And a few thousand more,” she added, 
sotto voce. M But we’re going to marry twins if 
we marry at all. That is decided, Doro?” 

“Certainly,” returned Dorothy, gravely. 

It was growing late. The nine o’clock bell 
meant nothing to the girls of Glenwood Hall this 
night. There was bustle in every room, laughter 
in the corridors, and a running back and forth 
until late. Suddenly Tavia had an idea. It grew 
out of the over-crammed boxes and trunks of 
“ loot ” from the walls. 

“Goody-goody-gander! I’ve got it!” she an¬ 
nounced to Dorothy. 

“ I know you have—St. Vitus’s dance,” groaned 
Dorothy. “ I have been expecting the announce¬ 
ment for ever so long.” 

“Miss Smartie!” responded Tavia. “You’ll 
see.” 

She flew about, whispering to the other grad¬ 
uates. In half an hour, just as Dorothy and Tavia 
themselves were in their nighties and boudoir 
caps, a knock came at the door, it flew open, and 
there filed into Nineteen almost the whole class 
svith arms full of a “great debris ” of articles, as 


" GOODNIGHT, GLEN WOOD ” *51 

Tavia called them, which had plainly been torn 
from the walls of the various rooms. 

“Come on, Doro,” giggled Tavia. “This is 
a donation party. We’re going to donate to the 
girls who are left such adornments, and the like, 
as we do not wish to carry away with us. You 
know—* We who are about to die salute you,’ and 
all that. Come on! ” 

Dorothy entered into the spirit of the affair. 
There were many trophies and pictures that would 
merely gather dust in the attic at North Birch- 
lands, she knew; she grabbed for these, and the 
procession took up its march from room to room. 

The lights had been left turned on in the halls; 
even if the girls were in bed they were routed out 
to receive the donation from the departing class. 
Mrs. Pangborn—even Miss Olaine—were con¬ 
veniently blind and deaf. 

Tavia made the most extravagant speeches. 
The most ridiculous presents were given with a 
ceremony that convulsed everybody. It was a fine, 
hilarious time. 

“ Oh, and the last bit of fun we shall ever have 
in old Glenwood Hall,” said Cologne, sadly, as 
empty-armed at last, the big girls made their way 
back to Nineteen. 

“ We’ll never have so much fun again, no mat¬ 
ter where we go,” sighed Ned Ebony. 


252 DOROTHY'S DALE PROMISE 

“Never is a long time, Neddie,” said Dorothy, 
cheerfully. 

Molly Richards had her arms around Dorothy. 
“ Miss Cheerfulness! ” she said. “ When the 
skies are gray and the birds do not sing, Doro 
Dale will always be exuding sunshine—eh? ” 

“ And we’ll all miss you—oh! so much, Doro 1 ” 
cried Nita Brent. 

“We’ll miss each other,” admitted Dorothy. 
“ But let us hope, even if we do say good-bye to 
Glenwood and the old crowd, that we’ll all meet 
again some time.” 

Tavia had been strumming on the banjo strings 
lightly, not having packed that joy-giving instru¬ 
ment. She broke out suddenly into the old school 
chant—and they joined her, softly: 

“Good night! good night! good night! good night! 

Good night, again; God bless you! 

And oh, until we meet again, 

Good night! good night! God bless you! ” 

The echoes of their sweet young voices died 
away. They kissed each other warmly and in 
silence. Then the others stole out of the old ~oom 
that Dorothy and Tavia had occupied so lung, 
leaving the two chums to the silence of the June 
night and their own thoughts. 


THE END. 













